Star Trek Odyssey - The Isle of the Sun
by USSUlysses
Summary: Ensign Kang has been a technician on Voyager for three years, tasked with maintaining the ship's bioneural gel packs. She didn't join Starfleet to work on glorified microchips all her life, but such is fate. When Voyager encounters a wormhole in the depths of space, though, she'll be launched on a strange odyssey that pits her, alone, against the vast, implacable cosmos.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes:**

\- This is rated M for some scenes of violence/horror that may be a bit uncomfortable to read, but are all in service of the story, and because in later chapters there will be some sexual content. There are no explicit depictions of sex or gore, however.

\- This story takes place on Voyager in the middle of Season 3, between "Blood Fever" and "Unity." It endeavors to portray the characters' personalities and relationships as they were at this time. However, the focus of this story is on some of the background characters; the crewmen and officers on the lower decks. The romantic pairings of this story do not involve canon characters.

* * *

STAR TREK

ODYSSEY

Isle of the Sun

 _TELL me, O Muse, of that sagacious man_

 _Who, having overthrown the sacred town_

 _Of Ilium, wandered far and visited_

 _The capitals of many nations, learned_

 _The customs of their dwellers, and endured_

 _Great suffering on the deep; his life was oft_

 _In peril, as he labored to bring back_

 _His comrades to their homes. He saved them not,_

 _Though earnestly he strove; they perished all,_

 _Through their own folly; for they banqueted,_

 _Madmen! upon the oxen of the Sun,—_

 _The all-o'erlooking Sun, who cut them off_

 _From their return. O goddess, virgin-child_

 _Of Jove, relate some part of this to me._

 _The Odyssey of Homer_

CHAPTER 1

 _Ensign Lucille Kang's Personal Log, stardate 50566 mark 6_

 _I woke up at oh six hundred this morning, a full hour before my alarm was set, to another damned Yellow Alert. I could see the reason for it the moment I glanced out the window— just one more in a long string of astral phenomena. In the Nekrit Expanse, it seems like weird astral phenomena crop up every ten seconds or so, and so far, they've all turned out to be nothing remotely interesting._

 _This one looks a bit like a flattened penny, dangling out there in space. It's an oblong disk of gas, about the color of copper, with a little spark of violet light right in the middle. At first, I thought it was a far away nebula around a young star. But no, it's hanging just a few dozen klicks off the port bow. If it were the size of a star, we would be inside of it._

 _Frankly, I've got no idea what that thing out there is. The fact that the Captain called a Yellow Alert doesn't really shed any light on it, either. The ship has been at Yellow Alert almost as often as not, the last few weeks. It's probably a purely precautionary measure. The only thing I really know about this phenomenon is that it was responsible for waking me up at oh six hundred and dooming me to a full shift in the BNG lab on what should have been my day off._

 _I swear, one of these days… I'm just so sick of bioneural gel packs. If I had one wish… well, obviously it would be to find a way back to the Alpha Quadrant, but my_ second _wish would be that whoever invented these finicky, temperamental, pain-in-the-ass bags of blue, computational snot would never have shared their idea with Starfleet, so that the little buggers never would have been put on_ Voyager _in the first place._

 _I've said this before, personal log, and I'll say it again, I'm sure. But I graduated from the academy in the top tenth percentile of my class. I joined Starfleet and studied biochemistry so I could seek out new life and explore alien worlds. Not so I could spend twelve hours a day, four days a week, week in, week out, in a dimly-lit monitoring laboratory, looking after the biochemical needs of glorified microchips. It's been months since I've been on an away mission. In fact, I could count the total number of away missions I've been a part of on one hand. And while a few lucky officers get to work on the bridge and attend meetings to analyze bizarre and fascinating new phenomena like that cloud disk out there right now, I have to spend day after day just making sure the BNG's are running at peak efficiency._

 _I'm beat, personal log. I'm running on four hours of sleep. I shouldn't have stayed up so late at Sandrine's last night, and I shouldn't have let Owen Vance ply me with so many synthales. I knew what he was after. I've been down that road once already, though, and it's not gonna happen again. Or at any rate, that's what I should have told him. Instead, I let him get to second base in Sandrine's primitive excuse for a 'fresher._

 _I just want to go back to my quarters now and collapse on my bed. I know, though, that the moment my head hits the pillow, I'll be wide awake. I've worked sixty hours this week, and I'm wound tighter than a K'tarian harp string. I'm gonna hit the gym and try to burn off some of this stress, and_ then _I'm gonna hit the sack. Hopefully, by the time I wake, the Yellow Alert will be over, and I can salvage what's left of my weekend._

"Ensign Kang, report to Shuttle Bay One."

Lucy stumbled at the sudden chirp of her combadge and let loose a frustrated interjection at Commander Chakotay's disruption. "Oh, stars!"

A moment before, the only sounds had been her bare feet thumping again and again against the pliant surface of the treadmill, the treadmill itself whisking around and around its track under her feet, and the faint, omnipresent hum of the starship around her. _Voyager'_ s deck eight gymnasium was empty, aside from Lucy. The portside windows boasted a view of empty space, a featureless void tinged violet by the interstellar gases of the Nekrit Expanse, unremarkable but for the astral phenomenon that seemed to be the center of everyone's attention on _Voyager_ at the moment.

Lucy should have been ecstatic to receive the call from Commander Chakotay. The only possible reason he would call her to the shuttle bay was to attend an away mission. It was the opportunity she'd been waiting for. And yet, she was exhausted, she was stressed, and she was not exactly presentable at the moment. Frankly, she just wasn't up to it.

Lucy thumbed the off switch for the treadmill, and the track slowed smoothly to a stop under her feet. For a moment, the whole room seemed to glide in the opposite direction around her as she adjusted to the change in motion. She took a deep breath, mopped her slender wrist across her forehead to clear away some of the sweat, and slapped the combadge affixed to the strap of her sports bra to reply.

"Acknowledged, sir," she said.

Whether she was up to the task or not, she was going. She couldn't turn down a direct order, after all, and besides, she'd be kicking herself for months if she managed to miss this opportunity.

Lucy set off immediately for her quarters. Only when the cool draft of the ventilation system in the corridor hit her sweat-dampened skin did she remember she'd left her sweater in the gym behind her. She was walking down the corridor in just her short, hip-hugging gym shorts and her sports bra.

Oh, well. She couldn't waste time going back for it now. She was going to be late enough as it was. Besides, almost everyone was either at their post or in their bunk at the moment. It was still a Yellow Alert, after all. She padded down the corridor in her bare feet, arriving at the turbolift without incident.

When the turbolift doors opened, however, there stood Ensign Vorik.

Lucy froze for a moment. Vorik took in her appearance with one quick glance, her light olive skin glistening with sweat, her shoulder-length black hair swept back in a haphazard ponytail, her slender proportions very apparent in her half-dressed state, and his gaze returned immediately straight ahead. His expression betrayed nothing.

Lucy debated waiting for the next turbolift, but decided that trying to explain to Vorik that she wasn't comfortable riding with him would be even more awkward. She figured her best chance of saving face was simply to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary. She stepped over the threshold and turned to face the door.

"Deck four," she instructed the computer, and the doors whisked shut. The slight lag in the inertial dampeners gave the turbolift just enough of a sense of movement to reassure them that they were on their way.

Lucy glanced sidelong at Ensign Vorik. His gaze remained fixed on the turbolift doors. And yet, the hairs on her neck stood on end, and a chill ran through her that could not entirely be contributed to the ship's ventilation.

Rumors had been running wild about the Vulcan ensign, the last week or so. There weren't really any facts to be had, at least not among the junior officers and crewmen of the lower decks, but the scuttlebutt was that Vorik had had some sort of violent episode and attacked Lieutenant Torres during the last away mission. Crewman Berman from engineering said that ever since, he could cut the tension between the two of them with a knife.

It wasn't often that Lucy contemplated the raw strength that the Vulcans on the crew possessed. It so seldom had any bearing. Vulcans were usually the very last people she would imagine being capable of violence. It wasn't a thought she liked contemplating, especially when she was in such a vulnerable position as she was now.

When the turbolift doors opened, Lucy was alarmed to recognize the control room of the Shuttle Bay. Gathered there in front of her was Commander Chakotay, Lieutenant Tom Paris, Ensign Harry Kim, and Chief Petty Officer Owen Vance, who had been her drinking companion the night before in Tom Paris's holodeck recreation of a twentieth-century tavern. At the sound of the doors opening, all eyes turned towards her and Ensign Vorik.

Lucy froze like a targ in the hoverpod lights, her eyes wide with panic. Vorik strode out of the turbolift. Ensign Kim took one look at her, and his eyes jumped to the ceiling. Tom Paris's gaze darted up and down her slender figure a couple times before he managed to force them to meet her eye line. Vance leered at her with poorly disguised amusement. Chakotay just gave her a hard, questioning look.

Lucy met his eyes and, just before the turbolift doors whisked shut, she said, "I'll be right back, sir."

He nodded in acknowledgment just as the doors closed.

The turbolift resumed its course towards deck four and her quarters. Lucy's cheeks were blazing hot, so she was sure she was blushing bright red.

She wondered whether she'd be able to play it off with a joke when she got back, or if that mortifying moment would stigmatize the rest of her career, or even the rest of her life.

Lucy made it the rest of the way back to her quarters without further incident, thankfully. She headed directly into the 'fresher, stripping off her sports bra and shimmying out of her gym shorts as she walked. She stepped into the sonic shower and turned it on full blast, holding her arms up in the air and turning in three slow circles as ultrasonic pulses, antiseptic rays, and jets of warm air caressed her naked body up and down, scouring every drop of sweat and grime from her skin and leaving her feeling clean, dry, and refreshed.

Next, she dug some clean underwear and a gray uniform undershirt out of her dresser, took a clean uniform out of her closet, and got dressed with all possible haste. She felt much better in her impeccably tailored black uniform, with its cerulean blue shoulders and its single bronze pip on the collar marking her as a Starfleet science officer. She pulled on her socks and uniform boots next, and finally, she affixed her combadge over her left breast. She activated her holomirror and spared a full second to inspect her appearance. She straightened her ponytail, tugged on her sleeves, sucked in her little belly, and stood up straight, slender shoulders back, small chest puffed forward.

Even with everything that had happened since she'd first taken her commission, all the setbacks and disappointments, disasters and embarrassing moments that had plagued her career so far, she was still proud of her uniform and everything it represented. She'd made a commitment to the peaceful exploration of the cosmos, to provide aid where it was needed, to pursue scientific curiosity wherever she could, to make peaceful contact with new worlds and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no one had ever gone before. She was Starfleet. Sometimes, she needed to remind herself of that fact.

Lucy made it back to the shuttle bay about five minutes after she'd left.

"I'm sorry about that, Commander," she said as she stepped out of the turbolift.

"It's quite alright, ensign," said Chakotay. "It's been a long day. If you're not feeling up to this away mission, I'll understand completely."

"Oh, I am!" Lucy rushed to reply. "You just happened to catch me while I was in the gym, sir. I was on my way back to my quarters to change when the turbolift made that little side trip."

She flashed a little annoyed look at Vorik, who was gathered with the other officers for the away mission. It occurred to her that he could have warned her where he was going before she stepped onto the turbolift.

Chakotay flashed a polite smile, though she was sure there was amusement dancing in his eyes. "It's nothing to worry about, ensign."

She caught sight of Chief Vance, still smiling at her embarrassment and casting occasional glances below her neckline, as if he could see straight through her uniform.

 _Why did it have to be him?_ Lucy wondered. _Why couldn't it have been Tuvok, or any other security officer?_

But she turned her focus back to Chakotay and replied, "Thank you, sir."

Chakotay nodded, then changed the subject, turning to a display on the shuttlebay control console. "This is the telemetry from a class one probe sent through the wormhole at sixteen hundred hours."

Lucy's eyes went wide at the mention of a wormhole. That's what that stellar phenomenon hanging off the port bow was? It was news to her. If they'd discovered a stable wormhole here in the Delta Quadrant, it could prove a huge boon to their mission. If the other end happened to be closer to Federation Space than this end, they could shave years or decades off their journey. And even if it wasn't, the data they gathered from studying it might be instrumental in detecting similar ones in the future.

Lucy swallowed her urge to voice these thoughts, or to ask any of the thousands of questions that immediately sprang to mind. She was clearly behind the curve on this subject, since no one else seemed surprised. She struggled to focus on the probe telemetry Chakotay was showing her and to pay attention to his mission briefing.

The telemetry included visual and sensor readings of what looked to be an alien space station. It was a massive, bone-white, isosceles tetrahedron, its shape stretched so that it did not resemble a pyramid so much as a wedge, with narrow edges running horizontally along the top and the bottom of the station. The structure featured gaps in the triangular faces along the top and bottom edges that might have been shuttlebay doors, exhaust ports, or disruptor banks for all Lucy knew, and corrugated striations that radiated from the narrow end of each face vertically across the structure.

"This was discovered on the far side of the wormhole," said Chakotay. "In fact, this structure appears to be the _only_ thing on the far side of the wormhole."

Lucy squinted at the image and thought she spotted another station of the same design in the distance behind the first one. "What about that, sir?" she asked, pointing at the spot.

"Well spotted, ensign, but sensors indicate that that's the same structure."

"What, like a reflection?" she asked.

Chakotay smiled. "Not exactly," he said. "It's the same structure, viewed from farther off. The space on the other side of the wormhole seems to curve around on itself, encasing a volume of only about sixty-five thousand cubic kilometers in a hyper-spherical, four-dimensional geometry."

"So if we flew in a straight line in there… we'd go in a loop, and end up where we started?"

Chakotay nodded.

Lucy looked from Chakotay to the sensor readings in wonder, then looked around at the other officers. Harry and Tom seemed less amazed. In fact, mostly they seemed to be amused by her reaction. It occurred to her that they were already aware of all this, and this part of the briefing was only for her benefit. She cast a glance at Chief Vance and saw a greatly muted reflection of her own surprise. No, he hadn't known about any of this, but he was too much of a professional to let that fact interfere with the briefing. She resolved to follow his example.

"Indications are that this region is a pocket of normal space, folded into subspace inside of a static warp field," said Chakotay.

"You mean that whole place exists entirely within a warp bubble?" said Harry.

Chakotay nodded. "There have been a few incidents recorded by past starships that have hinted at this kind of possibility."

"Yes," said Vorik, "However, the degree of subspace distortion required to form and maintain a static warp bubble of this magnitude would likely exceed nine hundred thousand teracochranes. That would exceed the total warp core output of every Starfleet vessel in service, combined."

Chakotay took a deep breath and said, "To form, maybe, but not to maintain, it seems. The warp distortion emanating from the space station only registers in the thirty teracochrane range, and no other source of subspace distortion is in evidence."

Harry's brow furrowed in thought. "Could it be a naturally occurring subspace phenomenon?"

"That's one thing we're hoping to determine," said Chakotay.

Lucy's head was swimming, trying to keep up. First, they told her they'd found a wormhole. Then, that the other side was a massive pocket dimension in a warp bubble in subspace, and before she even had a chance to digest the enormity of this discovery, they started batting around warp physics calculations, as if she should already know all the implications of this many teracochranes versus that many teracochranes, and Lucy just had to face the fact that she was way out of her depth. She was a biochemist, dammit, not a warp physicist. How did senior officers and hotshots like Harry Kim manage to come into every situation with a working knowledge of the subject at hand, no matter how obscure or complicated?

She resolved to keep her mouth shut and wait until the briefing turned to something she actually knew about. They'd called her down here for a reason; people didn't get picked for away teams completely at random, after all.

"There is another, rather intriguing, possibility to consider," said Vorik.

The others turned their attention to him.

"It is possible that the warp distortions emanating from the space station are responsible for the creation of the wormhole."

"Very good, Ensign," said Chakotay. "That was Captain Janeway's hunch, as well. If that should prove to be the case, then it might be possible to use the station to create another wormhole, leading somewhere else."

"You mean like the Alpha Quadrant?" asked Harry. Lucy's heart leaped at the possibility.

Chakotay nodded. "However, we still don't know enough about this phenomenon, or the technology that seems to be operating inside of it. We have no way of knowing its capabilities or its limits. It certainly warrants a closer look, though, wouldn't you say?"

"What about life signs?" said Lieutenant Paris. He cast a glance at Lucy as he spoke. "Is there anybody home?"

 _Of course. Why didn't I ask that? That's my department._

Chakotay swiped the console display and called up another page of sensor readings. "Here," he said, pointing at a familiar-looking chart of figures and graphs. "What do you make of this, Ensign Kang?"

Lucy's heart started hammering in her chest. _Time to shine,_ she told herself. She leaned over the display and reviewed the internal temperature readings, the spikes in mass spectroscopy readings corresponding to O2, CO2, and various Carbon and Nitrogen compounds, the infrared localization and variance indices, the aggregate entropy index, the sonic vibragram, the millivolt-range electrochemical emissions, and other esoterically complex datasets, from which a trained eye could discern the life signs corresponding to most known forms of life.

"Hm." The sound escaped her throat unbidden. She studied the figures a little closer and said again, "Humm…"

"What is it, Ensign?" said Chakotay. She glanced up, and all five men were looking at her.

She wondered if she could really offer any new insights, or if they were just testing her competency. She felt like she was back in the academy, trying to impress her professors.

"Well, the air is breathable, though stale and thin. Temperatures fluctuate around fifteen C, so we should maybe bring some light jackets. Lifesign readings are consistent with trace microbial life, and not much else. Biochemical spectroscopic readings suggest about three hundred kilograms of preserved organic matter. I'd guess either a frozen food supply or vacuum-preserved mummies, but it's conceivable that it might represent living organisms in some form of stasis. Whatever it is, though, it's clearly inert. And yet, the station is putting off strong electrochemical emissions resembling theta and gamma waves."

"You mean brainwaves, ensign?"

"That's right… I mean, not necessarily, but certainly… bioneural." Ah, there it was, Lucy realized. The reason she'd been assigned to this away mission.

"You mean like our own bioneural gel packs?" said Harry.

Lucy nodded. "It's definitely similar. And since there don't seem to be any living organisms on the station that could generate such emissions naturally…"

"Then you believe this station might have a similar computational technology to ours," said Chakotay. Clearly, he had suspected as much all along, but she had just confirmed it. She was heartened that her opinion actually seemed to count for something.

With that established, Chakotay moved the briefing along. "The aperture of the wormhole is wide enough to admit _Voyager_ in theory, but it would be a tight fit, and it would be imprudent to put the whole vessel at risk," he said. "So, we'll be taking a shuttlecraft through instead."

"How stable is it?" Lucy blurted out, visions running through her mind of being crushed in a collapsing wormhole, or trapped forever in a pocket dimension. She regretted the outburst immediately, but Chakotay seemed to take her question as professional curiosity rather than a nervous outburst.

He answered frankly, "So far, we've seen no evidence of deterioration. Variances remain in the forty to fifty millicochrane range. It'll be a little bit bumpy, but it's a short trip through the aperture."

 _There he goes talking about cochranes again,_ she mused, but she just nodded in response.

"It'll be a walk in the park," said Tom. He gave Lucy a reassuringly confident smile.

"The real issue we need to worry about is the station itself," said Chakotay. "Just because there's no organic life on board, doesn't mean no one's home. Those bioneural readings might signify a powerful artificial intelligence, or even a psionic lifeform."

At that, Vorik's eyebrow shot up in an expression that might have been incredulity.

"We've encountered such beings before," Chakotay said to Vorik.

Vorik acceded the point with a nod.

"And even if there is no conscious entity on the space station, that wouldn't rule out automated defenses or other hazards. That station is powered. It's putting off as much power as _Voyager_ does on her best day, and all indications are that it's essentially running in standby mode. We can't allow ourselves to underestimate its capabilities. We'll need to stay on our toes in there."

Chakotay looked at each of them in turn. Tom responded with a cool, confident nod. Harry nodded with a degree of exuberance that may have been covering for his well-founded anxiety.

When his eyes found hers, Lucy borrowed a bit of the certainty she found in his piercing gaze and used it to muster a determined nod of her own.

Vorik simply nodded in acknowledgment when Chakotay looked to him. Vance stood up a little straighter and nodded with grim determination. Lucy's gaze lingered on the noncom for a moment afterward, wondering again why they weren't taking Tuvok on this mission, instead. As the others broke from their huddle around the control console, Vance looked up and caught Lucy staring. He raised a questioning eyebrow, and Lucy just shook her head slightly and turned away, joining the other officers heading towards the closest shuttlecraft.

Lucy wasn't sure how she felt about Vance. Off duty, he tended to be boisterous, gregarious, and chivalrous, at times verging on patronizing, like a relic from a previous century. He certainly could be charming, and Lucy had to admit that he was decent in bed. But he had an arrogance about him that was a serious turnoff. She'd kept him at arm's length since that first encounter a few months ago, but _Voyager_ was too small a ship for her to avoid him completely. She'd suspected all along that he was hoping for something more from her—more sex, or a relationship, she didn't know—and last night at Sandrine's had confirmed it. But Lucy was pretty sure she didn't share his interest.

On duty, though, was another story. He was always professional, always respected the chain of command, always kept his uniform clean and pressed, his boots polished, his honey-blonde hair in a perfect regulation crew cut. The Captain had offered him more than one commendation for bravery over the last three years. Lucy should have felt comfortable knowing Owen Vance had her back.

She chanced one last glance at him as she stepped up the ramp into the shuttle, and thought she caught his eyes lingering on her hindquarters. No, she didn't feel particularly comfortable.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

The launch sequence took several minutes. Warming up the engines and running a complete systems check was not something to be rushed, so long as circumstances allowed. Heavens forbid they damaged _Voyager_ 's last type 8 shuttlecraft due to a launch-sequence error. The Captain had already made it clear that all future replacement shuttles that they manufactured would follow the design schematics of the smaller, more efficient Class 2's. She couldn't imagine making a prolonged space voyage with five other passengers in one of those shoeboxes.

The flight from the _Voyager_ Shuttle Bay across twenty kilometers of empty space to the mouth of the wormhole took less than a minute. Lucy was not emotionally prepared when Tom announced, "Approaching the vortex now. Better strap in, boys and girls! We're in for some chop."

Lucy grabbed instinctively for her seatbelt and found it already securely fastened. Violet light washed over the inside of the shuttlecraft as the mouth of the wormhole, which had resembled little more than a pinprick from the windows on _Voyager_ , now filled the forward screen of the shuttle. She took a deep breath as the craft dove into the light.

The shuttle lurched sickeningly downward and strafed jarringly to starboard, as if the ship had been caught in a sudden, violent current, and then the violet light was gone, and through the forward windows, Lucy beheld a bizarre starfield.

The crew was quiet in the shuttle for a moment. Lucy took three deep breaths to settle her stomach as her eyes stayed glued to the view in front of them. It took her a moment to realize that all of the supposed stars that populated this space were actually pinpricks of violet light. Around the nearer, brighter pinpricks, she could discern halos of red-orange.

"Are those other wormholes?" she asked.

"They are not," said Vorik. "They are, in fact, the _same_ wormhole."

Chakotay cast a rye smile back at her from the co-pilot's seat. "Did you ever visit a hall of mirrors as a kid?"

Lucy smiled back, the adrenaline from the wormhole ride making her giddy. What an amazing place this was.

In the midst of this faux starfield hung the tetrahedral wedge of the space station, a few discrete running lights dimly illuminating its triangular faces at oblique angles, softening the stark, ghostly glare of violet that shone on it from the wormhole.

It was smaller than it had appeared in the scans.

"Take us closer to the station, lieutenant," said Chakotay. "I'm going to try and say hello."

"Aye, sir," said Tom.

Chakotay activated the comm and opened hailing frequencies. "This is Commander Chakotay of the Federation Starship _Voyager_ , hailing the unidentified space station. We've come in hopes of making friendly contact."

Lucy highly doubted they'd get a response. The station may have had power, but it was clearly abandoned. If the comm system was even still operational, the most they were likely to get would be an automated message.

After a moment of waiting for a response, the aft console on the starboard side of the shuttle started beeping. Lucy looked back over her shoulder and saw Harry operating the console with a look of fierce concentration.

"We're being scanned, Commander," said Harry. "I… think."

A second alert started sounding from Harry's console, joining with the first one to make a raucous cacophony.

"I think they're trying to access our computer database through the comm signal, sir!" Harry half-shouted over the alerts. "It might be a hostile data intrusion, or just an over-friendly handshake, Commander, I don't know. Recommend ending the transmission!"

Just then, a strange voice issued from Commander Chakotay's console. It sounded metallic and brittle, like a crude attempt at a computer-generated voice issuing from an ancient, industrial-age gramophone. "Welcome, custom—Wel—Wel—Welcome to the—" the voice dissolved into an oscillating squeal, something like a chorus of cicadas, if the cicadas were made of scrap metal and badly tuned violins, and then the noise cut off.

A moment later, the alerts sounding from Harry's console fell silent, first one, then the other.

"The data intrusion seems to have stopped, sir," said Harry. "Their scan has ended, too."

They sat in silence for a long moment. Lucy's ears were ringing. The hairs on her neck were standing on end. It was as if a thousand-year-old mummy just crawled out of the earth, grabbed her by the shoulders, shouted "Nice to meet you!" in her face, then collapsed in a fit of seizures and died again. Even though the possibility of an automated response from the station hadn't been far from her thoughts, it was such an incredibly uncanny experience.

"Commander," Vorik said from the port-side aft console, "There are signs of activity from the station. Power levels are rising steadily."

Lucy leaned forward and gazed out the forward viewport at the station. As she watched, the station's dim running lights became suddenly much brighter, and the vertical corrugations of its hull began glowing steadily brighter as well. The station seemed to be coming to life before her eyes. Lights rimming the ports along the upper vertex of the station sprang suddenly to life, and the center port began spiraling open, revealing a cavernous space inside.

"Looks like they're rolling out the welcome mat," Tom commented.

"Ensign Vorik, analysis," said Chakotay, "Would it be safe to enter the station?"

Vorik entered commands into his console and consulted with his readings. "There appears to be a semi-permeable forcefield in place in the mouth of the porthole, Commander, similar to our own shuttle bay. I believe the shuttlecraft will be able to penetrate it. The atmospheric pressure on the inside is approximately zero-point-eight-nine atmospheres, and rising. Temperature is eighteen-point-three Celsius, and rising. The chemical composition of the atmosphere is changing, as well. O2 concentration is increasing, and CO2 is decreasing. I would hypothesize that the station is adapting conditions inside of its hangar bay to reflect the conditions inside of our shuttlecraft, sir."

Chakotay nodded thoughtfully. "Are there any signs of malfunction, Vorik? I would hate to think of the consequences if their atmospheric system should turn out to be in as rough a shape as their comms."

"It is difficult to say conclusively, sir," said Vorik. "The changes in conditions are not proceeding in a linear fashion, and there have been numerous small spikes and dips in power station-wide. However, vital station-board systems such as the porthole forcefield and artificial gravity have shown no signs of failure. The station may have additional safeguards in place to protect these vital functions."

Chakotay was silent for a moment longer, then said, "Take us through the porthole, Lieutenant Paris. Nice and slow. Slow enough to spare the shuttle in case that forcefield isn't quite as permeable as it appears."

Tom nodded. "Aye, sir."

The shuttle swooped toward the porthole in a graceful arc, proceeding more and more slowly as they drew closer. Lucy could see a wide, flat deck through the opening, with plenty of room to land their shuttle. She could not see any trace of the forcefield, but she gripped her armrests tighter as they approached the rim of the hangar door, bracing for impact.

A soft, almost imperceptible vibration passed through the shuttle as they entered the hangar. That was the only sign that they were passing through any kind of barrier. Tom guided them in for a smooth landing on the deck.

Without needing to be prompted, Ensign Vorik began reading out conditions of the environment outside of the shuttlecraft. "Gravity is one gee. Atmospheric pressure is oh-point-nine-seven atmospheres. Temperature is twenty-five degrees Celsius. Air is seventy-seven-point-three percent Nitrogen and twenty-one-point-two percent Oxygen. All readings closely match the environment of the shuttlecraft."

They were quiet for a beat, and then Chakotay said, "Ensign Kang, are there any signs of harmful microorganisms on the station?"

Lucy startled at the sound of her name. She looked down at the small console in front of her, which she'd configured for bio-analysis during the pre-launch sequence, and let her training take over as she instructed the computer to perform a few quick tests and analyses.

"Negative, sir," she said. "Atmospheric sampling reveals no known forms of pathogenic organisms. I am detecting a rather peculiar range of diversity in the microbiome here, however. I wonder how many different species have visited this station with their own unique microbes over the centuries, and what kind of microbial ecosystem has formed here in the absence of larger organisms."

Chakotay smiled. "I like that curiosity, ensign. Let's focus on assessing potential risks for the moment, though."

"Of course, sir," said Lucy.

"Ensign Kim, have there been any further signs of life from the station's computer?"

"Negative, sir. Not a blip."

"Alright. Everyone, check your equipment. Phasers set to heavy stun. Keep your comms open in case we get separated. Stay on your toes out there, people."

Lucy dutifully consulted her hand phaser and tricorder, then double-tapped her combadge to open the channel. Until further notice, it would transmit automatically whenever she spoke, and the other team members' badges would broadcast her voice whenever she was out of earshot.

"This station seems friendly enough so far, but we still have no way of knowing its capabilities or its purpose," Chakotay went on as the team checked their equipment. "We've also seen plenty of evidence that its systems are malfunctioning. There may yet prove to be hostile security measures and other hazards on board. No one is to stray from the group. And don't touch anything until you've performed a detailed scan, first. Understood?"

The away team responded with a chorus of "Aye, sir."

"Good. Chief Vance, would you do the honors?"

"Yes, sir!" said Vance, and he reached for the hatch.

The air outside of the shuttlecraft felt very much like the air inside, but the smell was quite distinct. Either the station's recyclers were incapable of purging the smell of ozone and dust, or they were the cause of it. The lighting was wan and flat white, emanating from widely distributed floor tiles and ribbons that ran along the base of the walls that enclosed the rather cavernous chamber. The away team's shadows shifted and stretched overhead as they crossed the hangar bay.

"It feels like we're walking on the ceiling," said Harry.

He was right. Lucy wondered if maybe the artificial gravity was operating in reverse. Then she wondered what kind of species defaulted to lights on the floor, rather than the ceiling. Was their world not lit by sunlight from above?

Without needing to be told, the away team fanned out into a standard formation, with Commander Chakotay in the lead, and Chief Vance bringing up the rear. The others spread out in the middle, forming a rough hexagon, each officer close enough together to come to the aid of an endangered fellow officer, but far enough apart to mitigate the risk of more than one person falling into the same trap, or being hit by the same attack.

Lucy glanced to her right and saw Vorik consulting his tricorder, and she belatedly remembered to check her own.

Chakotay led the team to the far end of the deck, where a circular aperture in the wall seemed to represent a doorway. And sure enough, as they approached, the aperture spiraled smoothly and soundlessly open before them.

It was such a fast and quiet transition, one moment closed, the next open, that half the away team didn't even see it happen. Even Vorik, with his superior Vulcan hearing, did not look up from his tricorder until Lieutenant Paris froze mid-step in front of him.

The whole team stood motionless for several seconds, studying the sudden opening, waiting to see if anything would happen. Chakotay's hand hovered inches above his hand phaser, still in its holster. Ensign Kim and Chief Vance had their weapons at the ready. Lucy reflexively began scanning the door with her tricorder, and glancing over, she saw Vorik doing the same.

"No signs of life, and no apparent chemical or biological hazards, Commander," said Lucy. She hoped she hadn't missed anything.

"I am detecting elevated energy readings in the bulkheads around the doorway, but I see no evidence that there are any defensive weapons or traps, sir," Vorik reported.

"Ok," said Chakotay, "Behind me." And he took a step forward.

"Excuse me, sir," said Chief Vance.

Chakotay paused and glanced back at the security officer, a mildly nonplussed look in his eyes.

"Permission to lead the way, sir?"

 _Whoa,_ thought Lucy, _That takes some guts._ It was the responsibility of the security officer to assume the highest degree of risk in any away party scenario, but it was rare for a mere noncom to second-guess the order of a commanding officer. Lucy's knee-jerk reaction was to wonder whether he'd lost his mind, questioning the chain of command, but she had to admit that he was really only performing his duties to the letter.

Chakotay seemed to recognize this as well. He nodded and said, "Granted."

Vance held his type-3b assault phaser rifle at the ready and proceeded ahead of the party to the doorway. He stood against the left side of the doorframe to view through the passage to the right, then turned around and sidestepped his way through the doorway facing left, panning his rifle left to right.

Having done all this, he turned back to Commander Chakotay and flashed a thumbs-up. "All clear, sir."

Then there was a sudden humming sound, and a dozen threads of red light lit up the air around Vance, reflecting off the fine particles of dust that filled the air. Chief Vance swung his weapon around, searching for the source of the rays as the beams of light swept over his body head to toe, and then vanished.

"Crewman? Are you ok?" said Chakotay.

"I'm fine, sir," said Vance. "I think it was just scanning me."

Chakotay glanced back at Vorik and Lucy. She focused her tricorder sensors on the security officer and got a quick read of his vitals.

Vorik finished his analysis first. "Residual energy traces are consistent with a high-intensity scan," he reported.

"No signs of harm," said Lucy.

She flashed Vance a relieved smile. His steely demeanor broke for just a moment when he caught sight of it, and he smiled back.

"All right," said Chakotay, "I'll go next."

Chakotay passed through the doorway, and the same red lights washed over him. Then Tom passed through, then Vorik, then Harry, and finally, Lucy. She expected to feel… something. But Lucy didn't feel so much as a tingle as the scan washed over her body.

The room into which they'd entered led into a long, wide corridor, illuminated by the same bizarre floor lighting. There were dozens of other circular doorways branching off of the corridor to the right, and every ten meters there was a floor-to-ceiling window on the wall to the left, looking out on the bubble of hyperspherical space beyond, sprinkled with different views of the wormhole and dotted with other vantages on the space station.

Vorik approached one of the doors with his tricorder held high. When he drew close, a pale green scribble appeared in thin air in front of the door like a hologram, written in a language their universal translators didn't recognize. The door didn't budge. Vorik completed his scan, finding no way to open the door without application of force, and rejoined the party as they advanced down the corridor.

At the far end of the hall, there was a raised, circular dais. The away team stopped, and again, Vorik stepped forward with his tricorder.

"It is most likely a means of conveyance within the station, Commander," he reported.

"You sure it's not a trap door?" muttered Tom. Lucy shared his apprehension. If the lift pad were broken, or if it wasn't meant for humanoid passengers, it might wind up crushing them flat.

"I cannot definitively rule out the possibility, lieutenant. However, I fail to see any reason why such a contrivance might be put in place in this station," said Vorik.

"Thank you, Ensign," Tom said with mild annoyance.

Chakotay thought for a moment, then said, "Chakotay to Shuttlecraft. Prepare emergency beam-out protocol four on my mark. Target the entire away team."

"Acknowledged," came the automated voice of the Shuttlecraft's computer, "Emergency beam-out protocol four, ready."

"Just in case," Chakotay told the others.

"Not a bad idea," Lucy muttered. Unfortunately, the shuttlecraft could only transport a couple people at a time, and by the time the first two people were back on board, the rest of the team might already be pancaked. That rather unpleasant notion really didn't bear consideration, though.

At Chakotay's signal, the away team filed onto the circular lift pad. A beat passed in which nothing happened.

"Anyone see any controls?" said Tom.

"Maybe it's voice operated?" said Harry.

And then the corridor they'd just come down vanished, and they were flying down a vertical circular shaft so quickly that no one even had the time to register their surprise by the time they arrived at their destination.

The lift's inertial dampeners worked flawlessly, thankfully. They'd felt not a single hint of downward acceleration, but the lift must have been moving at over fifty gees. If the dampeners had lagged for even a split second, they'd have all been smushed flat before Chakotay could even form the idea of queuing the emergency transport.

The away team disembarked on shaky legs, finding themselves in a large room, once again floor-lit. Towering pillars of what looked like fogged glass, each one about four meters in diameter, were arranged around the room in a grid pattern. There were sixteen pillars present in four rows of four, with plenty of room to walk between them and stare up at them, as they stretched fifteen meters up to the darkened ceiling. Lucy fired up her tricorder and started scanning the nearest pillar.

"It's hollow inside," she said, and she turned her tricorder onto the next pillar over.

She let out a gasp of surprise as complex organic matter registered on her tricorder spectrograph.

"There's something in this one!" she said.

"What is it, Ensign?" asked Commander Chakotay.

"Chemical breakdown and mass are consistent with a human-sized organism, Commander," she said. "No life signs. Internal temperature is minus sixty Celsius. I can't say whether it's a living being in stasis or just preserved organic matter."

"I can confirm Ensign Kang's readings, Commander," said Ensign Vorik. He was scanning a column on the left side of the room. "This enclosure holds similar readings."

"This one does, as well," said Ensign Kim.

"Does anyone see any controls? Any way of accessing the pillars?" said Chakotay.

The away team searched every corner of the room but found nothing, not even so much as a light switch.

"Sir, I haven't seen a single toggle, switch, button, or console screen since we entered the station," said Tom.

"It may be that the entire station is automated," said Vorik.

"Or, perhaps the controls are all localized on other decks," said Chakotay. "We're guests here, after all. It makes a certain amount of sense not to put station controls where any random visitor could access them."

"Should we try voice controls?" said Harry.

Chakotay shrugged. "Station, can you hear me?" he said, and he paused. When no response was forthcoming, he said, "I am Commander Chakotay of the Federation Starship _Voyager_ , addressing the operating system of this unidentified Space Station. Please respond."

There was no response.

"Either voice controls are broken, or they never existed in the first place," he said.

"Or it just doesn't get your language," said Lucy. She startled when she realized how she'd just spoken to a superior officer, and she rushed to add, "Sir."

"Either way," said Chakotay. "Let's push on."

At the far side of the room from the entrance, another door led into a circular chamber about ten meters across. The entire interior of the chamber was lily white. The ceiling formed a smooth, featureless dome, and the soft floor lights were well distributed, casting even illumination over the entire ceiling.

In the center of the chamber, there was a peculiar edifice, standing two meters tall, the shape and color of an egg. As the away team filed into the room, Lucy found herself drawn towards this pod. She walked in a wide, slow circle around the strange object, scanning it with her tricorder.

"I'm picking up bioneural energy readings coming from inside of this pod," she said.

"It appears to be a mechanical apparatus of some kind," said Vorik. "Its purpose is unclear."

"Ensign Kim," said Chakotay, "Try creating a computer uplink with your tricorder."

"Aye, sir," said Harry. He drew out his own tricorder and began entering commands.

"Ensign Kang," he said, "How do these bioneural readings compare with the gel packs on _Voyager_?"

Lucy's eyes remained glued to the waveforms on her tricorder display. "They're very different, sir. _Voyager'_ s theta waves are highly organized, but very simple. They're generalized to tackle any computations put into them and remain idle otherwise. But these… these are far more complex. They look disorganized at first glance, but the longer I study these readings, the more I see that there are different nested sub-nodes of organization, working in concert, creating a perfectly harmonized waveform."

She lifted her eyes from the tricorder and regarded the egg-like pod in wonder.

"Could your readings be an indication of intelligence?" said Chakotay.

She shrugged. "That's what _I'm_ wondering," she said. So engrossed was she in studying the smooth contours of the pod, she didn't even notice the casual way she'd responded to Chakotay's question. She noticed a thin seam traversing the surface of the egg and traced it with her eyes.

"Any luck making contact with the station computer?" Chakotay asked Harry.

Lucy noticed on the surface of the pod a series of four raised bumps arranged in a row. They were the same color and texture as the pod, with no edges and no markings, and yet they plainly seemed to serve a function.

"Nothing yet, Commander," said Harry. "I can detect alien computer protocols, but I can't convince them to talk to my tricorder."

Lucy studied the bumps a little closer. Without thinking about it, she lifted her hand to the buttons, intending to trace their contours.

"Lucy, don't touch it!" Owen shouted out, but it was too late. Lucy's fingers had just made contact with the surface. From the sheen of the materials, she'd expected it to feel cool and metallic, but it didn't. It felt more like marble, or ceramic.

She removed her hand from the object and took a step back. She looked around at the other party members, saw the apprehensive way they regarded her and Owen. Come to think of it, his little outburst had completely disregarded her rank. She turned to the security officer, ready to firmly remind him who could and couldn't give her orders, when there was a deep click.

The sound seemed to travel up her legs from the floor. There was a little hum of activity in the pod behind her, and she turned around just in time to see the egg split open along the seam, and an articulated mechanical tendril unfurled itself from inside, up into the air.

Lucy turned and ran for the door, just as every member of the away party did without having to be told.

She didn't get three steps before she felt the mechanical cord wrapped around her ankle, holding her fast. "Commander!" she called out, and a second cord leaped from the inner workings of the egg and wrapped itself around her waist. Commander Chakotay turned and witnessed Lucy being lifted bodily into the air, and in one fluid motion, carried into the stifling confines of the egg, which closed up tight around her again, entombing her in darkness.

Lucy screamed. More tentacles snaked over her body, these ones soft and elastic, probing at her armpits, slithering between her legs. The air was stifling inside of the egg, and now Lucy could feel a cool fluid dousing her, something soupy and viscous, with an earthy, fungal smell.

Something stung Lucy's thigh. Something stung Lucy's bicep. Something stung Lucy's lower back. Something stung Lucy over and over again, and each spike of pain meant another thick needle puncturing her flesh from the head of one of the tentacles that had her bound up.

She cried and wailed, and through her own anguish, she could hear Chakotay shouting orders, his words coming through the open link of her combadge.

"Chakotay to shuttlecraft, emergency beam-out on Ensign Kang's signal, now!"

Lucy held her breath, waiting for the tingle of the transporter beam. Instead, she heard the computer's automated voice saying, "Unable to comply. Cannot establish an affirmative lock."

"Lieutenant, get back to the shuttlecraft, see if you can establish a lock. Ensign Kim, keep working on that computer link! Find a way to stop this!"

"Aye, sir," said Tom and Harry.

"Ensign Vorik, find me a weak point on the pod. Somewhere we can fire phasers to disable it without harming Kang."

"Aye, sir," said Vorik.

Lucy heard all of this, but could barely pay attention. Her terror had her heart racing. Each moment she was in this torment, she didn't think she could survive the next. The reality that she was about to die a horrible, grisly death was creeping in around the edges of her awareness.

A new tentacle slithered up her shoulder and probed at the nape of her neck. She tried to shrug it away, but the mouth of the tentacle found the soft tissue at the base of her skull, behind her left ear, and then it stabbed her. Her vision went white for a moment, and she felt a peculiar pressure at the corners of her thoughts. The whole right side of her body went tingly and numb, for just a moment. And then, all of a sudden, all of the pain that she was suffering simply vanished.

Lucy knew she had needle-like tentacles penetrating her body in more than a dozen places, and she could feel them against her skin, but they didn't hurt. She hardly even registered the discomfort of being tied in this awkward fetal position by the tentacles.

In the absence of the pain, Lucy's terror had free reign. With nothing to distract her from her obvious doom, Lucy began to whimper and wonder if there weren't some god-like alien entity out there that might be willing to lend an ear to a prayer.

"Ensign Kang, can you hear me?" said Chakotay. He was still coming through loud and clear on her combadge.

"Y-yes…. Yes sir," Lucy whimpered.

She tasted acid for a moment, and then she tasted rosemary.

"Hang in there, Ensign," he said, "We're getting you out of there."

"Oh... ok Com-commander," she cried.

She had a sudden flash of memory, totally random, walking through a spaceport behind her parents, making their way towards the civilian transporter network. They were so tall when she was little, and the spaceport was crowded and loud. Lucy could even smell the Bolian food being served in a little spaceport replimat they'd been passing when the memory abruptly ended, dumping her back in the present.

The viscous fluid of the pod was all over her body now, matting down her uniform, drenching her hair. It was getting in her nose and her eyes.

"Commander, I can't separate her signal from the pod," she heard Tom say on her combadge, and the terror of her situation hit her all over again.

And then, suddenly, the fear was gone. Just as the pain had vanished a moment before, now, so did the terror. Lucy felt around in her mind for the fear she knew was warranted, but found only an abstract concern.

Absent pain and fear, still bound tightly inside of the egg, so she couldn't so much as raise her hand, Lucy felt the profound sorrow of her impending death swell inside of her.

It occurred to her that, just as she could clearly hear the away team desperately working to free her through her combadge, each of them could hear her anguished screams and cries through theirs, and she made herself go quiet. Then she realized the others would assume the worst if she suddenly stopped making noise.

"Commander Chakotay?" she said.

"Yes, ensign?" he said.

"Thank you… for trusting me for this mission," said Lucy.

"Of course I trust you, ensign."

"I so seldom get the opportunity to get off the ship," she said.

Tears were running down her cheeks, and she could feel her face wanting to twist up in anguish, but she forced herself not to let it affect her voice.

"I just wanted you to know that I was grateful for the opportunity. I wish I'd gotten it more often. I wish… I wish I didn't let you down this way."

"No more talk like that, Ensign," said Chakotay. His voice was stern, but obviously wrought with emotion. "You've done your duty as a Starfleet Officer. And we'll have you out of there momentarily, you understand? So just hold on. That's an order."

"Yes, sir," said Lucy.

Something was happening to her body. She could feel it clear down to her bones. Sensations like tiny snakes crawling around under her skin, like electric shocks coursing through every fiber of every tissue, but all without pain.

Something was happening to her mind. First, her pain had vanished, and then her fear. With each change, the way she experienced her circumstances was different. And suddenly, now, even her sorrow was gone. She probed for it like a tongue hunts for a lost tooth, but it was gone, just like that. The three overriding emotions that should have defined this experience were just… gone. What did that leave her?

It left her tired. Lucy wanted to fall asleep. She suspected if she did, she wouldn't wake up. She felt some abstract concern at the prospect. A few superficial regrets flitted through her mind as she started drifting off. She'd always dreamed of surprising her parents and her brothers when she got home. They were probably clinging to some paltry hope that she still might be alive out here, somewhere. It had given her comfort, thinking that one day she might be able to prove that hope well-founded.

 _Oh well._

Lucy surrendered to sleep, but instead, she found… something else.

It couldn't be called a voice. It couldn't be called an emotion. But it was… something. A presence. She couldn't make sense of what was coming out of it. Something like information, or knowledge, or… urgings. It lurked behind her own awareness, behind the awareness she was familiar with, the one she'd carried with her all her life. Try as she might, she couldn't get a handle on it.

It shifted around in the back of her mind as if it were getting comfortable, and then it came to rest, and Lucy couldn't find it anymore. It was gone without a trace.

A strange thought popped into Lucy's head.

 _Finished_.

And then, the egg cracked open again, and light came pouring up into her world. The tentacles unfurled and let Lucy slip out of their grip, down onto the floor of the chamber, soaked in blue-green slime, bright red wounds peppered across her body like a pox, visible through the ruined tatters of her uniform.

Lucy was profoundly relieved. By the end, the thought of death hadn't given her more than a superficial sense of worry or sadness, but now, the prospect of living filled her with joy-joy that she was too physically exhausted to express, right now.

Chakotay rushed to Lucy's side. He lifted her head gently off of the cold deck, and he looked into her eyes. "Tom!" he called, turning his attention to his combadge, "Lock onto me and Ensign Kang and energize!"

His eyes met hers again. Lucy smiled up at him, and her relief was reflected in his eyes. "Thank you, Commander," said Lucy, and the confinement beam gently restrained them as the transporter took hold. The ivory chamber dissolved into golden light and gave way to the familiar confines of the shuttlecraft, and Lucy finally faded to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

"She's stable," said the Doctor. "That's the good news."

"All right," said Chakotay, "What's the bad?"

They stood in the Doctor's office in sickbay, looking out the window at Ensign Kang where she lay on a sickbay bed, still unconscious. Kes was sitting at her bedside watching the biomonitor.

"It appears the ensign has undergone some rather extensive modifications," said the Doctor. "In fact, it seems the modification process is ongoing. I have no way to stop it without doing potentially fatal harm to the patient."

"What kind of modifications? To what end?" said Chakotay.

The Doctor shook his head. "To what end, I can't say. It seems a number of biosynthetic implants have been embedded deep in her tissues." He turned to his desktop console and called up the results of his medical scans, superimposing the readings over a simple outline diagram of a human body. Lit up at multiple points on the diagram were silhouettes of slender little squid-like creatures, or machines… It was hard to classify the biosynthetic constructs one way or the other. They had heads like worms and many, many tendrils like threads that fanned out through her body.

"They seem to be hardwired into her nervous system," the Doctor went on, "sending and receiving signals from her central nervous system. They're supplementing natural organ functions and regulating hormone levels, stimulating the growth of some cells and inhibiting others. They also seem to be modifying her DNA."

Chakotay studied the diagram and the accompanying readings, a sense of disgust and trepidation rising up in him. "This resembles Borg technology. Is there any evidence of nanoprobes at work here?" The desiccated corpse of a Borg drone he'd stumbled upon on an away mission last week was still fresh in his mind. The specter of Borg cubes lurking just outside of sensor range in the murky depths of the Nekrid Expanse had haunted him ever since.

"Certainly not any of Borg design," said the Doctor, alleviating his fears but not quashing them completely. "My tests are ongoing, though."

Chakotay studied the diagram closer. "What do you make of this one?" he said, pointing at the alien construct occupying the diagram's skull.

" _That_ implant is the one that worries me the most," said the Doctor. "Its processes are threaded throughout her brain. It might influence her cognition and her perceptions, bias her behavior… it could conceivably even be controlling her body. I'll monitor her engrams for any irregularities when she wakes."

Chakotay was quiet for a moment, regarding his unconscious officer. He'd let her down, back on that space station. He hadn't acted fast enough when that pod had opened. He should have destroyed the thing the moment it made a sound. He should have acted faster when the cables ensnared Ensign Kang. If only he'd been faster, sharper, quicker on his feet…

He wouldn't let her down now. The alien space station still had her, even if she was out of the pod. He had to find a way to stop its progress before it finished turning her into… whatever it was turning her into.

But, he couldn't let himself forget, he also had a duty to protect the rest of the crew. He tapped his combadge. "Chakotay to Tuvok," he said.

"Tuvok here, sir."

"Assign two security personnel to sickbay. The Doctor will brief them when they arrive."

"Acknowledged," said Tuvok.

Chakotay met the Doctor's gaze, and the Doctor nodded his understanding.

"Under alien control or not, our crewmember is still in there, Doctor," said Chakotay. "I know you'll do everything in your power to help her."

"Of course, sir," said the Doctor.

Chakotay walked out of the Doctor's office and crossed sickbay. The doors to the corridor opened as he approached, and standing outside was Chief Vance, looking very dour. _That was fast,_ thought Chakotay. But then he noticed that the security officer wasn't approaching the door, but apparently dithering in the corridor. "Is there something I can help you with, Chief?" said Chakotay.

Vance jumped to attention at the sight of his senior officer. "No, sir. I just wanted to know if I could visit the patient."

Chakotay felt his eyebrow rising and quickly schooled his facial expression. "You'll have to ask the Doctor," he said, and then he passed out into the corridor.

"...told her how you felt, before?" It was a gentle, feminine voice. Lucy was sure she recognized it.

"Yes… well… I mean, I think she has the general idea," said someone else. It was a man's voice, low and brash, and the connotations of his tenor stirred a sense of attraction, balanced on a knife's edge with a sense of discomfort.

Owen, that was the second one. And the first one was Kes, Lucy remembered now.

Off to Lucy's right, something started beeping. It sounded like a sickbay biomonitor.

"Doctor!" Kes called, and then she leaned in close to Lucy. "Ensign, are you awake?"

Lucy opened her eyes and took in the faces around her. Owen stood on her left, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Kes sat on her right, holding Lucy's hand. A couple other security officers stood guard by the sickbay doors. The Doctor was approaching from his office, his face a mask of concern.

"Ensign?" said the Doctor, "How are you feeling?"

Lucy took stock of herself for a moment. The sickbay bed she was lying on was comfortable. The sickbay blanket felt nice on her skin. "I feel alright," she said. She propped herself up on her elbows, and as her weight shifted, she noticed something about her body was... off. She couldn't immediately pin down what it was, though.

The Doctor took a medical tricorder off a nearby shelf and began scanning her. Without lifting his eyes from the device, he tapped his badge and said, "Doctor to the Bridge."

"Janeway here, Doctor," came the captain's voice. "What's your status?"

"Ensign Kang is awake, sir."

"Acknowledged, Doctor. Thank you."

The Doctor stopped scanning and looked back at his patient.

"Are you in any pain?" he said.

Lucy shook her head. "No, I'm good."

The Doctor's concerned expression didn't waver. "Do you know where you are right now, Ensign?"

Lucy chuckled a little at the question. "Sickbay. _Voyager_. The Delta Quadrant."

The Doctor bit his lip for a moment and said, "Do you know _why_ you're in sickbay, Ensign Kang?"

"Well…" said Lucy, and she glanced around at the others gathered around her bed. The intensity with which the Doctor, Kes and Owen were all looking at her was starting to make her a little bit uncomfortable. The security officers at the door to sickbay were troubling, as well.

She returned her attention to the Doctor. "I mean after what happened on the space station…" she cast a meaningful glance at Owen. It had been an intense ordeal, and Owen, at least, would know a bit about what she'd been through. "It's hardly a surprise."

The Doctor nodded. He still looked worried. Lucy wondered why. She was fine, now. She felt fine. Did he know something she didn't?

The Doctor turned to Owen. "Mr. Vance, I'm sorry, but could you excuse us, please?"

Owen nodded. "Of course, Doctor," he said. "I'm glad you're alright," he told Lucy.

She saw the sincerity in his eyes, and it surprised her. She wondered if she hadn't been too hard on him before. It was obvious she was attracted to the security officer, so why did she have to make things complicated?

Owen turned and headed towards the doors. Lucy called, "Hey Owen." He paused and looked back at her. Lucy smiled warmly at him. "Thanks for visiting me," she said.

Owen's eyes grew a little wider. He flashed an uncertain smile and nodded, then left the sickbay.

Lucy returned her attention to the Doctor, who was studying her face like a bug under a magnifying glass.

"Ensign, are you aware that your skin pigmentation is changing?" he said.

"Huh?" said Lucy. Her hand rose to her cheek. "You mean I'm blushing?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, that's not what I mean."

Lucy looked from the Doctor to Kes, who was squinting at Lucy's face now, too. "Your lips are reddening," she said.

"Really?" said Lucy. Her fingers moved to her lips. "That's weird…"

Kes stood and crossed the sickbay, apparently looking for something. The Doctor sat down on the stool she'd vacated.

"Ensign Kang, are you aware of any… out of the ordinary sensations? Any pain or discomfort, anywhere in your body?"

Lucy shifted her hips and rolled her shoulders, gauging her senses. "No, Doctor. I told you, I'm _fine_."

"You're not experiencing any nausea? No trembling? No sense of weakness? No fear or anxiety?"

Lucy shook her head. "Not really..."

The Doctor sighed. "Don't you think that's odd, considering what you've just been through?"

Lucy shrugged. "I mean… I'm alive. That's what matters, right?"

The Doctor just shook his head. "Do you have any sense of what was done to you on that station?"

Lucy considered. It was certainly not something pleasant to contemplate, but for the Doctor's sake, she tried.

"Well, at first, I was in a lot of pain, and I was terrified. I thought I was going to die, and what a horrible way it would have been to go."

Lucy felt an involuntary shudder, but it seemed out of place to her. The recollection didn't actually bother her all that much.

"Then… all of a sudden, the pain stopped. I was literally being stabbed all over my body and twisted around by all these strong cords, and yet, somehow, it didn't hurt anymore. Maybe the pod used a numbing agent? And then, suddenly, I wasn't afraid anymore. I still thought I was dying. I guess maybe I was in shock? Or I'd just accepted it as inevitable? But I wasn't scared at all, just… inexpressibly sad. I thought I'd never get home again."

It was hard to convey the experience to the Doctor. It was hard to even remember what it had felt like, to be that sad. She couldn't really find the feeling inside her anymore.

"Then, the sadness was gone too. That was the weirdest part. Like, I felt all these slimy tubes sticking into my body, and I could feel it under my skin. I could even feel it in my head. Like something out the worst, most disgusting, horrific nightmare. And all I could gin up in reaction was this big sense of, 'Wow, this should really be bothering me a lot more than it is.' But I guess I was just exhausted by that point. By the time the pod let me go, I was beyond ready to just pass out."

Lucy's attention returned to her current surroundings. The Doctor looked at her with compassionate eyes. Kes stood in front of her bed, clutching a hand mirror against her chest. Her face was ashen, and tears were welling up in her wide eyes. She blinked several times to clear her eyes, and then she stepped forward and handed Lucy the mirror. "Here," she said. "I thought you'd want to see what we were talking about." The young Ocampan hardly got the words out before she turned away. She wiped her eyes with her hands as she walked quickly to the Doctor's office, letting the doors close behind her.

Lucy didn't know what to make of that reaction. She supposed the story must have been pretty upsetting to hear.

"Are you upset, that that happened to you?" said the Doctor.

She shook her head. "It's over, now."

"Are you worried about what the lasting effects might be?"

Lucy shrugged. "A little, maybe."

"And you aren't in any pain."

"I told you, no. Why do you keep asking that?"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Ensign Kang… Lucy… currently, inside of your body, there are fifteen biosynthetic constructs of alien design, with countless threads branching out through all of your major organs. They're already fully integrated with your biology. I can't remove them. And they're… changing you."

"Wow, that's... fascinating!" said Lucy. "Are they primarily organic, or do they incorporate organic tissues in an inorganic framework?"

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "I just told you your body was full of alien implants, Ensign. That isn't the sort of reaction I was expecting."

Lucy reflected for a moment. "Yeah, I guess you're right. You said they're in every organ… that must include my brain. Do you suppose they're changing my behavior, too?"

The Doctor nodded. "I think that's a safe deduction, yes," he said.

"Then, you must be worried that I could pose a threat to the ship," she said. She glanced at the security officers by the doors, Crewman Jeffery Thorold and Crewman Megan Steiner. Jeffery was watching her out of the corner of his eye. When he saw her looking at him, his attention returned directly ahead.

"Keep up the good work, Jeff, Megan," said Lucy. "Sorry I've got you stuck on guard duty. I know it can be pretty dull."

"Ensign, would you please focus?" said the Doctor.

Lucy was surprised at his irritation, though she supposed she shouldn't have been. She understood the gravity of the situation, even if she was having some trouble _feeling_ it.

"Sorry, Doctor."

The sickbay doors whisked open, and Captain Janeway strode in. Lucy pushed herself more upright out of a reflexive need to be at attention, and her blanket slipped down to her waist. "Captain!" said Lucy.

Captain Janeway took in her condition with a quick glance, and after a moment's hesitation, she said, "At ease, Ensign. Glad to see you're awake."

"Thank you, sir," said Lucy.

"Doctor, could I speak to you in your office for a moment?" said Janeway.

"Of course, Captain," said the Doctor.

Janeway and the Doctor proceeded into his office, and as they were entering, Kes slipped out. She looked at Lucy with sorrowful eyes and quickly looked away. She stood in the middle of sickbay for a moment, apparently unsure what to do with herself.

"It's ok, Kes," said Lucy. "I'm fine now."

"I know, I'm sorry," she said, and she forced herself to meet Lucy's eyes. "I'm glad you're ok."

Lucy smiled. "Me, too. C'mere." She held out an arm, and after just a split second of hesitation, Kes approached and let Lucy give her a light hug.

"Thank you for looking out for me," said Lucy.

"Of course, Lucy."

Kes stepped back again, looking moderately less miserable. "Is there anything I can get you?" she said.

Lucy thought for a moment and said, "Come to think of it, I'm famished."

"Oh, of course!" said Kes, and instead of heading towards the sickbay replicator, she headed towards the door. "Neelix has been making a pot of chicken noodle soup for you," she explained over her shoulder. "I'll go and tell him you're up."

Lucy smiled. Last she'd heard, Kes and Neelix hadn't even been talking to each other. "Neelix? Are you and he…"

Kes winced and shook her head. "We're... friends."

That was a bit of a bummer, but probably for the best. Something about their relationship had always struck Lucy as sort of unhealthy, but they'd loved each other so much. "Well…" she said, but she didn't know what to say about that, so she just said, "Just remind him to go easy on the Anthraxic citrus peel, ok?"

Kes laughed softly. "I will, don't worry," she said, and she passed through the doors.

Crewman Thorold was staring at her from the corner of his eye again. Lucy looked down at herself, and immediately registered something strange. Her blanket had slipped down to her waist when she sat up. She was wearing a simple, sickbay-standard gray tank top, and she was filling out the shirt surprisingly well. Lucy had never been particularly well-endowed.

 _Well, hello!_ She thought. _How the hell did that happen?_ She bounced herself up and down a little on her bed, and took stock of the way her body moved differently after this change in her dimensions.

It wasn't anything too dramatic, but it was definitely enough to catch the eye. She glanced back at Crewman Thorold and saw he was still watching her intently. She raised a knowing eyebrow and smiled in amusement. Jeff went beet-red and tore his gaze away.

The door to the Doctor's office opened again, and the Doctor and the captain strode back out.

"Doctor, my breasts have gotten bigger," said Lucy. Only once the words had come out of her mouth did it occur to her how inappropriate they might come across. But that was rather silly, wasn't it? This was a legitimate medical concern she was voicing.

Her words brought them up short, nonetheless. Captain Janeway got over her brief surprise and looked her over with a neutral expression, then turned to regard the Doctor.

For his part, the Doctor picked up his medical tricorder again and took a fresh scan. "Her condition is progressing," said the Doctor. "This is one result. Her skin is producing exotic proteins, including a polychromatic blend of pigments, as well as an abnormal degree of collagen. It seems her body mass is being redistributed, as well.

"What do you think the purpose of it is?" said Captain Janeway.

Lucy wondered what they were seeing when they looked at her, and then she remembered the mirror Kes had given her earlier. It was still resting in her lap. She picked it up and looked at her reflection, and for the first time since she'd woken up, she felt genuine shock.

She was beautiful. Her lips were fuller and pinker. Her eyelashes were thicker and longer. Her skin had an even glow, and her complexion was flawless. She could hardly even spot her own pores. Even her hair seemed to have new luster. She hadn't exactly been taking care of it, the last twenty-four hours. She hadn't even bothered taking down her ponytail in the sonic shower before the away mission, but now it flowed in silky strands down to her shoulders.

"Maybe it was meant to be an improvement?" said Lucy.

"But at what cost, Ensign?" said Janeway, and her voice had so much gravity that it actually succeeded at bringing Lucy back down to Earth.

She looked at the captain with wide eyes, at a loss. It finally occurred to Lucy that, whatever was happening to her, her life might never be the same again. She felt a swell of uncertainty.

"I don't know, sir," she said. "Do you think it'll be ok for me to go back on duty soon?" She hoped they wouldn't keep her cooped up in sickbay all day long.

Janeway exchanged troubled looks with the Doctor.

"Not just yet," said Janeway, "At least, not until we have a handle on these… changes."

Lucy nodded once. "Of course, sir. I understand."

The sickbay doors opened again, and Kes walked in with a tray loaded with a steaming bowl of soup, a roll of Neelix's homemade Cylla-bean bread, and a bowl of sliced Li'inoan peaches. She faltered for a moment when her eyes fell on Lucy. Evidently, her appearance had changed in just the few minutes that Kes had been out of sickbay.

Kes recovered quickly, though. "Doctor, is it ok if Lucy has something to eat?"

The Doctor nodded, and Kes put the tray on a tray table and brought it over to Lucy's bed.

Lucy smiled at the sight of the food. Her stomach was grumbling angrily. "Thank you, Kes. Tell Neelix I appreciate it."

Lucy swung her lissom legs off the side of the bed and sat looking down at the meal before her. Then, she picked up her spoon and dug in.

"Be careful, it's—" Kes said as Lucy brought a spoonful of the steaming soup directly to her lips. "Hot."

It _was_ very hot. Lucy felt the heat all the way down her throat to her stomach, but it didn't quite burn, and she wasn't afraid to take another bite straight away, and another after that.

The Doctor watched Lucy devouring the scalding soup for a moment, then marched up and stuck a holographic finger in her bowl.

"Hey!" Lucy protested.

The Doctor withdrew his finger and said, "This soup is sixty-seven degrees centigrade, Ensign. Doesn't it burn your mouth?"

Lucy looked up at him innocently and shook her head. He let out a huff of air through his nose and scanned her yet again with his tricorder.

"No inflammation… no tissue damage," he muttered. "I guess your epithelial cells are getting more resilient, too."

That reminded Lucy of some other recent tissue damage, and her hand went to the back of her neck, where she remembered one of the tentacles puncturing her skin. The area was perfectly smooth.

Lucy lifted up her shirt and studied her stomach, where she could still clearly remember two other tentacles had stabbed her.

There was no trace of the injury. Just smooth, toned flesh that, yesterday, she would have envied.

"Nice work, Doctor!" said Lucy. She looked up at the Doctor and saw his befuddled reaction. She realized she had just come within a few centimeters of unintentionally flashing the sickbay and lowered her shirt over her stomach again. "Or did the alien implants heal those puncture wounds themselves?"

The Doctor cleared his throat and said, "The wounds were already almost completely healed by the time you returned to the ship."'

Lucy nodded. "Well, I guess that figures," she said, and she turned back to her soup.

It was really quite good, Lucy reflected as she scooped another molten spoonful into her mouth.

"Doctor, send me regular updates on Ensign Kang's condition," said Captain Janeway as she headed towards the door.

"Understood, sir," said the Doctor.

"Thorold, Steiner…" the captain addressed the security officers, then she cast a glance at Lucy, still shoveling mouthfuls of scalding-hot soup, and considered. She returned her attention to the security officers. "Keep up the good work," she said.

"Aye, sir," they said, and Janeway walked between them, through the doorway into the corridor.

"Let's start with what we know," said Captain Janeway. She stood at the head of the conference table, the expansive windows behind her providing a dramatic view of space on the starboard side of the ship. A smattering of distant red giants lit up a light-years-wide canyon between the nebular cloud layers of the Nekrid Expanse, making the violet clouds above and below glow a deep fuschia with refracted light.

Janeway rested her weight on her palms, hands pressed flat against the table and spread wide in front of her. Gathered around the table were her senior officers and advisors. Chakotay, Tuvok, B'elanna Torres, Tom Paris, Harry Kim, and Neelix looked up at her with sober expressions that mirrored her own. Looking out on the room from a wall monitor was the Doctor, confined, as ever, to the holo-emitters of sickbay.

They were quiet for a moment, then Chakotay started. "The station hailed us when we first arrived. It didn't sound hostile, but its comms failed before it could finish one sentence."

"That was right after it tried to break into our computer, as I recall," said Tom. "That felt a bit hostile."

Harry shook his head. "The station was totally alien. For all we know, it was just trying to access our language database."

"Maybe," said Tom, "But the boobytrap it sprung on Kang makes me a little less inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt."

Harry shrugged at this.

"The alien pod's actions may not have been intentionally hostile, either," said Tuvok.

Tom's voice lost all levity when he replied to Tuvok. "You didn't see it in action," he said. "The thing's tentacles came out of nowhere, and it went straight for Kang before anyone could react. Then it just swallowed her, and nothing would make it cough her up again, even as she screamed in terror and agony. Believe me, it was hostile."

"It did, ultimately, release her," said Tuvok, indifferent to Tom's emotional outburst. "It could have easily killed her if its intent were hostile."

Tom's jaw worked from side to side as he held Tuvok's gaze with intense eyes for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded in agreement. "It could have, but it didn't. And that's what worries me more than anything."

Tuvok acknowledged his point with a slight nod. "We cannot ignore the potential threat posed by Ensign Kang's alien implants."

"Doctor, what's the latest word on your patient?" said Captain Janeway.

"Would you like the good news or the bad news first, Captain?" said the Doctor from the wall-mounted screen.

"Give me all of the news, Doctor," said Janeway, "And try to be concise."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Very well," he said, and then he squared his shoulders and launched into his report. "The changes are still ongoing, but they appear to be decelerating. It's impossible to determine the full extent of the alterations. However, many of them are cosmetic in nature. The alterations to her skin pigmentation and complexion, together with the redistribution of her body mass, suggest the intent to increase her… appeal."

The Doctor's drop in tone at this last pronouncement conveyed his disapproval. "Internally, the alien devices appear to have integrated themselves into all of her bodily functions and completely overhauled her autonomic nervous system. Her endocrine, cardiovascular, and immune systems are operating together with machine-like precision. Her blood pressure is ninety-nine over sixty-nine, her pulse is forty-eight beats a minute, her body temp—"

"We don't need the specifics, Doctor," Janeway interrupted, "Just a general overview should suffice."

The Doctor sighed and resumed, "Suffice it to say, her body is literally in super-human good health. Psychologically… the picture is more complicated."

Saying this, the Doctor glanced over his shoulder, through his office window, presumably towards Ensign Kang, although she wasn't visible on the monitor. "The ensign has been a stellar patient. She's been well-mannered, obedient, and _polite_ , which is more than I can say for most members of the crew.

"She is anxious to receive a clean bill of health and return to duty. I don't think she grasps the full significance of her situation. I'm not certain she's psychologically capable of grasping it in her current state. The alien implants appear to have heavily blunted her capacity for fear or sorrow, as well as her sense of pain. I suspect these alterations may have been intended to shield her from the traumatic nature of her transformation, but they have had the result of skewing her ability to predict negative consequences."

Chakotay's brow furrowed in thought for a moment before he spoke up. "At first blush, it might seem like a gift, to be free of fear and sadness," he said. "But those feelings are closely tied to guilt and remorse."

"So she might be a psychopath, now?" said Harry.

"Ensign, would you kindly leave the task of diagnosing the patient to her doctor?" said the Doctor. "I haven't seen any sign of antisocial behavior from Ensign Kang. On the contrary, she has displayed a sense of empathy and concern for others that stands in stark contrast to her obliviousness towards her own condition. Frankly, I would need to observe her in a more natural environment to understand her mental condition."

"Is there anything else in her behavior that gives you cause for concern, Doctor?" said Janeway. "Anything that hints at the possibility that she might present a danger to this ship?"

The Doctor cast his eyes up thoughtfully for a moment and shook his head. "No," he said. "Other than her emotional impairment and her lack of pain, she has said and done nothing that would give me cause for concern. However, although my database holds the collected works of the Federation's best and brightest psychiatrists, I was not programmed to act as an Emergency _Counseling_ Hologram. I won't be able to form any kind of comprehensive diagnosis without observing her behavior outside of sickbay."

"You can't seriously be suggesting we let her roam the ship," said Tom.

"Of course not," said the Doctor. "The Holodeck would be more than sufficient for my purposes."

Janeway considered the proposal for a moment, then nodded. "You have my leave to use Holodeck Two however you see fit, Doctor," she said, "However, she should have two security personnel accompanying her at all times." She cast a glance at Tuvok, who nodded acknowledgment.

"Thank you, sir," said the Doctor.

"Now then," said Janeway, turning back to the rest of her senior staff, "Concerning the space station."

"Captain, we should return to the station as soon as possible," said Chakotay.

Captain Janeway's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Why the rush?"

"You heard the Doctor," said Chakotay, "Ensign Kang's condition is still progressing. We don't have the technology to reverse it, but that station might."

Janeway glanced at her other officers and saw that most of them shared Chakotay's concern. For that matter, so did she. However, none of them conveyed the same sense of urgency that Chakotay did. Janeway wondered if he might be taking Ensign Kang's condition a bit too personally.

"And how would you suggest we proceed, when we return to the station?" said Janeway.

"We have to gain access to the station's computers," said Chakotay. "We established contact once, however briefly. I have to believe there's a way to make contact again."

"And if we can't?" said Janeway.

"Then we explore every inch of that space station until we find its main computer or a working access terminal. The last time we were there, most of the doors wouldn't open for us, and the turbolift would only take us to one destination. This time, we'll find a way. Even if it takes site-to-site transporters, ropes, and a phaser drill."

Lieutenant Torres nodded in agreement. "I wouldn't mind taking a crack at that station myself, sir," she said.

Janeway glanced at the others at the table and said, "Can anyone think of a reason i _not_ to go back?"

At this, Neelix spoke up. "I'm sorry, Captain, but something about this whole situation just doesn't feel right."

Captain Janeway turned her attention to the Talaxian, who, until this moment, had seemed content to listen in on the briefing without comment. "In what way, Mr. Neelix?"

Neelix frowned and shook his head. "This space station," he said, "It bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the Phantom Market."

The others were quiet for a beat.

"The what?" said Tom.

Neelix seemed genuinely surprised that they weren't familiar with the concept. "The Bizarre Bazaar?" said Neelix, "The Spectral Arcade?"

The others shook their heads.

"The Phantom Market is a legend throughout the galaxy, like the Great Bird, or the Preservers. I know you have those legends. Surely you must have some version of the Phantom Market?"

Another beat of silence passed as the others exchanged blank expressions.

"Please, enlighten us," said Chakotay.

Neelix sighed and squared his shoulders. "The Phantom Market is said to appear to travelers who wander the most remote reaches of deep space. It's supposed to be a great, big ship, or a space station, like this one. It welcomes weary travelers on board to shop its strange and fantastic wares. The shopkeepers are all ghosts and automatons. Their goods and services are all utterly unique in the galaxy, and their value is beyond measure. But the prices are similarly steep. They aren't happy with gold or jewels, dilithium or latinum.

"Every story about the Phantom Market different. According to one story, the Market only accepts payment in the form of memories. By another accounting, the Market demands blood sacrifices. But what they all have in common is that, in the end, the Phantom Market vanishes without a trace, and the people who encounter it seldom come away better off for the deals that they have made… if they come away at all."

Janeway nodded thoughtfully. She didn't put much stock in ghost stories, but it was possible that local legends about a mysterious station in deep space may have had some basis in reality. She tried not to dismiss Neelix's misgivings out of hand.

"We'll be careful of any deals we're offered while we're over there," said Captain Janeway.

Chakotay raised a knowing eyebrow. "'We,' Captain?"

Janeway smirked in response. "I can't let you have all the fun, Commander. I'll be leading the away mission. B'elanna, Tuvok, Tom, and Harry will accompany. You'll have the bridge, Commander. Doctor, keep me informed on your progress with Ensign Kang. We'll convene in the main shuttle bay at oh eight hundred. Dismissed."

The others rose from their seats and began filing out of the briefing room. The Doctor turned off his screen. Only Chakotay remained seated at the conference table.

Janeway waited as the others filed out of the room, then took a seat opposite her first officer.

"What is it, Chakotay?" she asked, knowing by the look on his face that something was bothering him.

"Captain, you shouldn't be leading this away mission."

"I understand your concern, Commander, but I know what I'm doing," said Janeway.

"All respect, sir, but none of us truly know what we're doing when it comes to that station. We still don't have any real clue what its purpose is, or what it's capable of. We may have only scratched the surface of the dangers in that station. It's too great a risk."

Kathryn gave Chakotay a searching look, and she thought she spotted an undercurrent in his concerned manner. "This isn't just about my safety, is it, Chakotay?"

Chakotay looked confused. "I'm sorry?"

"You and I both understand the level of risks involved in this mission. If your only concern was my safety, you would have made it known to me, but then you would have accepted my judgment. No, this is something personal to you, Chakotay."

Chakotay's eyes widened at the accusation, but then he looked away, perhaps realizing that she was right. "What happened to Ensign Kang was my fault," he said.

"No, it wasn't, Commander. She was a— _is_ a Starfleet officer. She knew the risks when she signed up. And I've read the reports of everyone on that away team. There was no way to predict what would happen, and there was no way you could have reacted in time. Don't fall into that trap, Chakotay. You know better."

Chakotay was shaking his head. "You weren't there, Kathryn. I should have been keeping an eye—"

Janeway scoffed. "She's a trained officer, Chakotay, not a child!"

Chakotay sucked air in through his nose and switched his argument. "It was fast, but there was a moment when I could have…."

Janeway was shaking her head sadly. "It may seem like it now, but you and I both know better than that. If there had been time to react, you would have."

Chakotay sighed and turned his gaze to the window, out to the stars. "Whether or not I could have prevented it, I'm still responsible, captain. I need to make it right."

Kathryn crossed her arms over her chest and considered her first officer for a moment, and then she nodded. "Alright, Commander. I trust you well enough to know you won't let your personal feelings interfere with your judgment."

Chakotay nodded. "Understood, sir. And, thank you, Kathryn."


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Lucy tromped her way along a narrow path through an overgrown field, an irrepressible skip in her step and a giddy smile glued on her face. She had to step high and hold her voluminous skirts up with both hands to keep their fringes out of the wet grass and mud, but if plodding through a cow pasture in early twentieth-century France was what it took to get out of sickbay, then she was grateful for the opportunity.

The sky was a clear, pale blue, but the air still carried the cool, fresh smell of a recent downpour. The sun had sunk below the caps of the trees that populated the pasture in clusters, and in the East, the sky was darkening to a deep indigo.

Lucy breathed deep and sighed, casting an appreciative gaze at her surroundings. She failed to spot a puddle in the trail in front of her until she stepped in it, splashing drops of muddy water on her boots and her underskirt, and on the pant legs of the man who was picking his way carefully along the path in front of her.

The Doctor tensed the moment he felt the water land on his tailored slacks. He looked down at his legs to assess the damage, then cast a reproachful gaze on Lucy, peering down on her over the rim of his early-twentieth-century spectacles. She clutched her hands behind her back, cast her gaze downward, and offered an abashed shrug by way of apology. Then she spotted the warm glow of a campfire filtering through a copse of trees up ahead, and she thrust her arm out, pointing, and nearly clipping the Doctor's nose in the process.

"Is that it? Is that where we're going?"

The Doctor looked where she was pointing and regarded Lucy with an exasperated expression. "Yes, I expect it is," he said, "But—"

Lucy took off at a trot, jostling past the Doctor and picking her steps a bit more carefully than before, torn between her excitement to reach their destination, and her desire not to soil her lovely costume. The Doctor, in his period suit, and the two security officers assigned to escort her, still wearing their Starfleet Golds, followed her lead.

She'd never been to a Roma carnival before, and she'd never played this Holodeck program, either, so she didn't really know what to expect. The Doctor had shown her a catalog of appropriate clothing, however, and the selection had offered some pretty strong hints about the sort of program this was.

"It's like old-world pirate meets early industrial age farmer," she'd said, scrolling through the catalog back in the Doctor's office, twenty minutes earlier. "Are they like… vineyard pirates, or something?"

The Doctor just rolled his eyes in his exaggerated way. "You're a poor student of history, Ensign Kang. The Roma are a proud people with cultural traditions reaching back two millennia. They survived the black death, the inquisition, and three world wars, in spite of being routinely censured and treated as outcasts by every Earth government until Unification. Now, pick something already, so we can get this excursion started."

The outfit Lucy settled on looked beautiful in the catalog, but she regretted her choice by the time the last article of clothing came out of the replicator. It had two skirts, both floor-length, and the inner one was made of wool, with a stiff underwire to give it even more volume. The earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings together weighed about a half kilo. It also included a corset she suspected was made of plasteel, a silky emerald blouse, and a two-meter-long, scarlet wool scarf.

She dressed in the sickbay 'fresher. It wasn't easy to make sense of the complicated undergarments and get the skirts on straight, but Lucy was a smart cookie. She figured it out. At last, she turned to the mirror.

And she stared.

 _Who is that?_ She asked herself. She stepped closer to her reflection, leaning over the 'fresher countertop to get a better look.

She'd seen her reflection a few hours ago. Hell, she'd caught a glimpse of her reflection when she walked into the 'fresher five minutes ago. But now…

Lucy traced the delicate contours of her face with the tips of her slender fingers. It was her, but it wasn't. She had Lucy's features, almost unaltered, but the slight alterations that were there somehow made all the difference. Her lips were just a bit fuller. Her cheeks were just a shade more pronounced, giving her face a little more of a heart shape.

But whereas the geometry of her features was only slightly altered, her complexion was completely transformed. Her normally olive skin was porcelain-pale. Her lips were the same striking scarlet shade as her scarf. Her eyes, normally dark brown, were emerald green, just like her blouse. And if she hadn't known any better, she'd think she was wearing heavy layers of black eyeshadow and mascara around her eyes. It was as if she'd gone to one of the master beauticians of Betazed to have her makeup done in a way that perfectly matched her outfit.

Lucy left the 'fresher to find the Doctor, to see what he would make of this latest transformation.

He studied her face for a moment and said, "I see your polychromatic pigments are at it again… and the interstitial tissues in your face have rearranged themselves a bit more, as well."

Lucy pouted for a moment. "Doctor, I wouldn't mind it so much if I had any control over it."

The Doctor's left eyebrow arched. "You mean to say you find these changes upsetting, ensign?"

"Well of course!" said Lucy. "I mean, it's pretty annoying not to know what my face is doing, one moment to the next."

"Annoying, yes," said the Doctor, "But Ensign, tell me, are you genuinely upset? Frustrated? Angry? How are you feeling?"

Lucy paused to consider. "I'm not angry. I mean it's not like it's somebody's fault. Whoever made the machine that did this to me is probably long dead, and we still don't really know what they were trying to accomplish. Frustrated? Yeah, I'm a little frustrated. I'd like to return to duty, or at least to be released from sickbay. I'd like my life to get back to normal. I understand why that isn't an option right now, but yeah, it's frustrating."

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully, then turned around and paced across sickbay. Then he turned back to Lucy and said, "Well, if you're ready to go, you can meet me in Holodeck Two. Chief Vance and Crewman DeVries will accompany you." He referred to the two security guards currently standing by the sickbay door. Lucy glanced at them for the first time and discovered that while she'd been in the 'fresher, the guards had changed shift. Owen Vance and Bobby DeVries were standing at attention, but Owen's eyes were locked on her face, his expression inscrutable. Lucy looked down at herself in her Roma apparel and wondered what he made of her appearance.

The blouse she'd picked was a bit provocative, she had to admit. It had long, flowing sleeves, and a deep neckline that drew attention to the endowments she'd never had before now, propped up to dramatic effect by the corset she wore under the shirt.

Lucy's gaze returned to Owen's, and he finally found the presence of mind to break off his staring.

"Is everything clear, Ensign? Crewmen?" said the Doctor.

"Yes, Doctor," said Lucy. Owen and Bobby nodded as well.

"Right. In that case, Computer, transfer the Emergency Medical Hologram to Holodeck Two." With that, the Doctor vanished from sickbay, leaving Lucy alone with the security officers.

She approached the door that they were guarding, and it slid open.

"Shall we, boys?"

Up ahead through the trees, the glow of campfires was becoming clearer. The sun was down, the sky was deepening in shade, and a couple stars were already glittering above the horizon in the East. The cool evening breeze was rich with the smell of smoke and roasting meat, and it carried the occasional burst of distant laughter, a playful shout, a child's squeal of delight.

Lucy picked up her pace, anxious to see this Roma carnival with her own eyes.

The trail cut through a crop of undergrowth, and on the other side was a shallow pond, home to half a dozen little black ducks and a couple white geese. Across the pond and through another curtain of undergrowth, Lucy could see a row of wagons lined end to end. She followed the trail around the edge of the pond and up a shallow embankment.

She reached the top of the embankment and paused. Laid out in front of her, the Roma carnival more resembled a shanty town on some poverty-stricken backwater planet than it did the extravagant circus she'd been picturing in her head. There were no exotic animals, no elephants or giraffes, just haggard mules and tired-looking ponies, mongrel dogs lurking in the shadows, stray cats roaming the canvas rooftops of the tents and stalls. The people were dressed more or less like the costumes from the Doctor's catalog, but only the really drab selections, the clothes without color or flair.

That said, the mood of the fair was not nearly as depressing as the setting would suggest. The people in Lucy's view were chatting amiably, laughing and joking, and in the distance, she could hear a fiddle playing.

The area of the carnival was bounded by a long train of wagons and carriages parked end-to-end on one side, and a long row of canvas tents on the other. Rows of shopping booths striped the gap in between, with plenty of open space inside for more than one bonfire, and what else, Lucy couldn't know without going inside to explore.

Lucy hiked her skirts again and started towards the closest row of stalls.

"Ensign, wait!"

She hesitated. The Doctor and her escorts had almost slipped her mind completely. Lucy turned around and waved them forward. They weren't more than five or six meters behind, so she wasn't sure what the hold up was about.

"Come on, Doctor!" she said, "Isn't this what we're here for?"

"Before we head in, Ensign, we need to lay down some ground rules."

"Ok, but let's make it quick," said Lucy. "It's getting dark, and I doubt the stalls will stay open much longer."

"We aren't here to shop, Ensign," said the Doctor.

"We're not? To be honest, Doctor, I'm still a little fuzzy on what it is we're doing here."

"I told you, it's part of a behavioral assessment."

"Right, but what does that mean, really? Isn't shopping a behavior?"

The Doctor pinched his lips tight for a moment and stared hard at her before saying, "How are you going to buy anything? You didn't bring any money."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Oh, right," she said. "I always forget about _money._ Such a bizarre concept."

"Not in this time period, it wasn't," said the Doctor. "Remember, these people don't have replicators. They have to toil and scrounge to make their way in the world, and in their culture, money is the only reliable way to convert their hard work into the things they need to survive."

"I understand all that," said Lucy. "It's not like I slept through my 'Economics of Scarcity' course as a child, you know."

Then she looked up into the air and called, "Computer!"

"Uh!" the Doctor interjected, "Belay that, Computer. Ensign, that's cheating."

Lucy pouted for a moment. "Well, I imagine _you_ brought some money," she said.

"I brought enough to pay for dinner," said the Doctor. "As I said, we're not here to shop."

Lucy sighed in frustration. "What am I supposed to be doing, then?"

"Why, what every good Starfleet officer does in a strange new environment. Explore! Get to know the locals. Learn about their lives, their hardships, their joys. But! You cannot leave my sight. That means no more running off, understood?"

"Yes, Doctor," said Lucy. "Can we go in, now?"

The Doctor thought for a moment and said, "You must also follow all of my orders, just as you would a senior officer. Understood?"

At that, Lucy balked a bit. Yes, he was the Chief Medical Officer, but really, he wasn't actually an _officer._ There were no pips on his collar, holographic or otherwise. Medical orders were one thing, but command-wise? Lucy cast an uncertain glance at Owen and Bobby.

"Aren't _I_ the ranking officer here, though?" she said.

A pained look crossed the Doctor's face for just a split second, and then his expression hardened. "Not while you're on medical leave, you're not, Ensign. You're my patient, and I'm acting with the captain's authority. And frankly, I'm hurt that I have to keep on reminding the crew that I am not a mere holodeck character to be disregarded and dismissed! I am the Chief Medical Officer on this ship! I honestly expected more from you, Ensign."

Well, she hadn't meant it like _that…_ had she? Lucy snapped to attention. "Yes sir, Doctor. Sorry."

The Doctor regarded her for a moment more, then acknowledged her apology with a nod. "Well then, let's see what this carnival has to offer, shall we?" With that, he turned and headed towards the shanty fair.

Lucy cast one more glance at Owen and Bobby, embarrassed at being dressed down by the EMH in front of the noncoms. She didn't dwell on it, though. There was too much to see and do, and who knew when they'd let her out of sickbay again after this?

She followed the Doctor into the fair, only to be waylaid at the first stall she passed.

"Hey there, pretty young miss!" The vendor called out. She was an old woman, her hair snow white and graced with a fine black hat of a peculiar design. "You have such lovely jewelry! But I notice you've got no hat or bonnet. Now, I have some lovely, high-quality choices that will match your outfit beautifully. Come, take a look."

Lucy's hand went to her head, feeling suddenly insecure. Was this an era in Earth's history when women were meant to keep their heads covered? Was it a matter of propriety, or of fashion? Either way, Lucy wondered whether she shouldn't try and fit in.

At her hesitation, the old woman waved her over with a reassuring nod. "Come, come, you'll like what I have to offer, I promise. And you won't find a better deal in the whole market, either. Come and see."

Lucy approached the stall and looked over the assortment of hats, scarves, and bonnets. Whoever had designed this program had clearly paid close attention to detail on the props. Lucy picked up a black hat with a wide, round brim and a swath of green cloth tied around the spade-shaped cap, felt the velvet fabric with her hands, studied the stitching at the seams. The stitchwork was very precise, but not machine-perfect; little irregularities throughout the material told a story of some old world craftsperson lovingly hand sewing the fabric, relying on years or decades of devotion to the art of millinery to get the form just right.

Lucy wondered if she had an impressive computer algorithm to thank for the stitchwork, or if it was the product of a high-fidelity scan of a hat that really existed at some point, back on Earth.

"Yes!" the old lady cried out, "That's the perfect choice! See how the green matches your blouse and your eyes? It's as if this hat were made just for you, to go with your lovely outfit. Don't you think?"

Lucy held the hat to her sleeve and shrugged. "It's a couple shades lighter, isn't it?"

"Oh, posh! Try it on, go ahead. Let me find my mirror."

Suddenly self-conscious, Lucy glanced around and found the Doctor standing a few paces ahead of her, regarding her either with cool anger or clinical dispassion; she couldn't be sure which. But he didn't say anything when their eyes met, so she supposed he wasn't about to drag her off, at least.

To her left, Owen and Bobby stood at parade rest, looking positively bored. Lucy donned the hat over her silky hair, struck a coquettish pose, and asked Owen, "Well, what do you think?"

Owen actually smiled, and seemingly was about to respond before he remembered himself. He cleared his throat and turned his head to the side.

Lucy rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the saleswoman, who was studying Owen as if she'd only now noticed he was there.

"Oh, is that handsome young man your suitor? Such a curious uniform. Is he in the navy?"

"Basically," said Lucy.

"Ah, I see," she nodded, then called to Owen, "Young man, now don't be shy. She's quite lovely in that hat, isn't she?"

Lucy leaned forward and addressed the old woman _sotto voce_. "Don't bother, trust me. He's on duty right now, which means he's no fun at all."

"Well, that's too bad. But I'll tell you what. If you like that hat, it's yours. Just six Francs."

It took Lucy a moment to process that last statement. "Six what? Is that money?"

"It's well worth it, dear. Really, I couldn't go any lower on that one. Did you notice the stitching?"

Lucy nodded. "Yes, I did. But…" She cast a glance at the Doctor for a moment, knowing she wouldn't get any help there. "I haven't got any money on me, I'm afraid."

"Oh no? Father keeps a tight fist on the purse strings, does he?"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Something like that. Sorry to waste your time, ma'am."

She set the hat back on the stall and turned to go, but the woman snatched her wrist before she even made one step.

"Hold on, now," said the woman, "I think there might be room for us to make a deal."

Lucy paused and turned back to the saleswoman. "Oh?"

"Oh, yes, yes! Tell me… what do you know about that bracelet you're wearing?"

Lucy glanced the three bracelets that encircled her left wrist. One was a string of imitation pearls that threaded over her hand and wrist, one was a thin gold chain with a little charm, and the largest one was a simple gold band that closed around the back of her wrist. Lucy took it off and weighed it in her hand, considering.

"I know, based on the weight, that the metal is mostly gold. " She held it to her ear and rapped against it with the ring on her right hand. "I know from the resonance that it isn't pressed latinum, though. But, if I recall my history, latinum wasn't known on Earth until the mid-twenty-second century, whereas gold was quite valuable." She smiled at the shopkeeper. "In fact, I'd wager it's worth quite a bit more than six, um…" What was the name of the money again? Lucy had hardly caught the word a moment ago. "You know. Coins."

The old woman's eyes shone. "Aye, you're shrewd, I can see that. Your parents ought to be proud. I'll tell you what. I'll throw in a lovely veil to match your hat. And a fine pair of gloves, as well. That seems a fair trade to me, don't you think?"

Lucy shook her head. "How about, in exchange for the bracelet, you give me the hat, and… say… ten Franks?"

The woman scoffed in disbelief, the avarice in her expression suddenly muted. "Sorry, dear, that's positively ludicrous."

Lucy just looked at her for a moment, at a loss. She really had quite a poor sense of what gold was worth to these people, or what a Franc was worth.

Finally, though, the old woman countered, "Four Francs."

"Eight," said Lucy, remembering the Ferengi ritual of 'haggling' from her cultural studies course at the Academy.

"Five," said the woman.

"Seven," said Lucy.

The woman pursed her lips and stared hard into Lucy's eyes for a moment, then conceded, "Oh, alright. Six Francs, and I hope you realize you've left me with almost nothing to show for the deal."

Lucy beamed. She took the six little silver coins that the woman offered her, put the hat on her head, and did a twirl on the spot. The old woman's sour expression vanished in the face of Lucy's unbridled delight. "Oh, get on with you, then. Go bargain some other poor shopkeeper out of house and home, why don't you?"

With that, Lucy set off towards the fair again, a fresh skip in her step.

"What did I tell you?" the Doctor said when she reached him.

"That I couldn't ask for money from the computer?" said Lucy.

"That we aren't here to _shop_ ," he said.

Lucy shrugged. "She reached out to me. Whether I talked to her or not, that's a behavior. Weren't you observing my behavior?"

"I was," said the Doctor, "and I am. And so far, I've noticed you have a considerable penchant for wasting time on pointless pursuits."

"Pointless?" Lucy repeated. "Doctor, I have money now. I don't know what this program has in store, but it might come in handy. And besides, have you seen this hat?"

"It's not like you can take it with you," said the Doctor, "It's just photons, remember?"

"Sure I can," said Lucy. Then she called out, "Computer!"

"Ensign, what are you—"

But Lucy talked over him, "Save a copy of this hat to my personal directory, and convert it to a replicator pattern."

A familiar electronic chime sounded from somewhere a couple meters away, and the impersonal voice of the computer said, "Acknowledged."

The Doctor was not amused. "Ensign, you aren't taking this exercise seriously."

"Yes, I am!" said Lucy. "You told me to be myself. I'm doing that. You told me to interact with the locals, and you took me to a _market_ , Doctor! How else do you expect me to interact with people in a _market_?"

The Doctor let out a huff of air. "Believe it or not, Ensign, there is more to this program than the merchant stalls. Now, if you'll cease with these delays, you'll soon see for yourself."

"Fine, Doctor," said Lucy. "I'll behave."

The Doctor nodded. "Good. And no more talking to the Computer. It robs the exercise of verisimilitude. You can always revisit the program on your own time if you find any other hats you fancy. Understood?"

"Yes, Doctor," Lucy intoned.

He cast one more appraising glance over her, then turned and stalked further into the fairgrounds. Lucy picked up her skirts and trotted after him.

The crowd became more dense and difficult to navigate the further into the fairgrounds they ventured, forcing Lucy to dodge and weave around playing children and men too engrossed in conversation to notice her trying to get past them.

"Pardon me! Excuse me," she kept saying, doing her utmost not to inconvenience the holograms with her passage. The Doctor was a bit more brusque, less averse to brushing shoulders or cutting people off, making Lucy work all the harder to keep up.

The security officers, meanwhile, carried on at a leisurely pace a few meters back, pushing the holograms out of their way without a second thought and ignoring the protests that followed in their wake.

Things opened up once they were past the market stalls. They entered a wide, vaguely circular clearing with a raging bonfire at the center and food stalls around the perimeter. The fairgoers were mostly clustered in small groups, particularly concentrated near the more popular food stalls and around the fire. Lucy found it shocking that the fire pit wasn't cordoned off in any fashion. Three small children were chasing each other in a loop around the perimeter of the roaring flames, and no adults seemed to be paying them any mind whatsoever.

Lucy kept an eye on the children as she followed the Doctor in a wide circuit around the bonfire, considering what she would do if one of the children slipped and went into the flames. If she went in after them, the Holodeck safety protocols would spare her from serious injuries, although the Doctor had warned her in advance that the protocols had been dialed back to permit some 'light scrapes and bruises,' as he'd put it.

She kinda doubted that was true. She doubted the Doctor's programming would permit him to allow her to come to even slight physical harm. But it was probably important for the test she was taking that she believed there were risks, so she did her best to play along.

So, for the sake of the experiment, she would weigh her actions on the assumption that she would suffer minor burns if she were forced to dive through the bonfire to save a holographic child. Of course, by the time she reached the little one, the child would likely be dead.

Not that the children were really alive in the first place. So they couldn't really "die" per se, and nor could they feel real pain.

The tallest was a little boy, maybe seven years old, with a soot-smeared cheek and a determined glint in his eye as he charged full-tilt at the second-tallest, a girl perhaps six years old, whose curly brown hair matched his so closely that they were almost certainly siblings. She was screaming and protesting, but occasionally her voice would break with a giggle, and when her older brother briefly stumbled, she actually slowed and looked back until he was almost caught up with her again.

The smallest was a little girl maybe four years old, struggling to catch up with her older siblings, her tiny, bare feet caked in dirt. Her dirty face was streaked with tear tracks, although she didn't currently seem to be crying.

The thought of that little girl stumbling and falling into the flames, her simulated agony, her simulated skin blistering and searing…

"Hey!" Lucy called out. She broke off of following the Doctor and made her way towards the fire pit. "Hey!" she shouted again, struggling to be heard over the crowd. When she came close enough to the bonfire that the heat of the flames kept sensible adults from approaching any closer, she looked around again for any parents or guardians who might be watching after the children. She saw only gaggles of people standing in little clusters around the fire, carrying on conversations that she had been only slightly successful at interrupting.

"Whose kids are these?" she shouted. "Does anyone know whose kids these are?"

No one paid her much mind. She saw the Doctor watching from the periphery of the crowd, and she wondered briefly if this was part of the test, or if she was getting sidetracked again. She wasn't particularly concerned either way.

A few onlookers watched with mild curiosity as she crouched low and waited for the children to come around the pit towards her.

As she watched, the smallest girl approached first, with her older siblings coming up quickly behind her, preparing to lap her.

Lucy was careful not to stand in the girl's direct path, not wanting to risk the girl running into her and falling over, or veering closer to the fire to get around her. She waited until the little girl came within arm's reach and, with all possible delicacy, she snatched the child up into her arms.

As Lucy stood up, the little girl looked around in confusion for a moment before turning her gaze on Lucy. Lucy watched the child's soot-caked, cherubic features as they cycled through confusion, non-recognition, and finally, fear.

"Listen, it's ok," said Lucy, hoping to put her fear at ease, "You shouldn't—"

But then the little girl was screaming and babbling in what Lucy thought she recognized as French. She hadn't come to the Holodeck equipped with a universal translator, and this program was apparently not inclined to do the translating for her.

"Shh! Shh! It's ok!" said Lucy, but the little girl started kicking and struggling against her grip. Lucy stepped away from the fire, hoping to reach a safe distance before letting the girl go. Her two older siblings had stopped playing chase. They stood at a safe distance and watched as Lucy grappled with their little sister.

" _Sacre bleu!_ " Someone cried out from the other side of the fire pit, and then a woman pushed her way through the crowd near the opposite side of the pit. "Release her!" she cried out, her voice shrill, her words heavily inflected by her French accent.

Lucy's grip went loose, and the little girl squirmed out of her arms and set off running directly towards her mother, skirting dangerously close to the edge of the pit.

Lucy watched in horror as her foot landed on the very rim of the pit, and the dirt gave out under her. The girl stumbled and her lower body fell down the embankment, where the intensity of the heat would be strong enough to slow-roast a side of beef. She stretched her arms out over the ground and clung to the dirt with all her might, and she screamed. The shrill woman who must have been the girl's mother screamed even louder, and a gasp went up from the crowd around the fire pit.

Lucy acted on instinct, without caution or consideration for the Holodeck safety protocols, or the lack thereof. She ran towards the little girl, to where the very real heat of the holographic fire was overpowering.

Still going full bore, Lucy dove to her knees and grabbed the child around the waist. Lucy's left leg went over the edge of the pit, forcing Lucy to plant her foot directly in the red-hot coals to stop herself plunging directly into the fire.

Holding the girl firmly with both arms, Lucy leaped up, out of the fire pit.

The girl's mother ran up immediately and snatched the child out of Lucy's arms, and then she turned on Lucy, her expression filled with rage as she hurled a constant stream of French-language invectives at her.

A couple bystanders interceded, guiding the distressed mother and her now-wailing, inconsolable daughter away from Lucy, speaking French to the mother and daughter in soft, soothing tones.

Lucy watched them being led away. The little girl was bawling, her bare feet and lower legs bright red with burns Lucy could only hope were minor. The mother was casting hateful, accusatory glances at Lucy at every opportunity. Lucy felt her eyes brimming with tears, and she fought to rein them in.

Someone grabbed Lucy's arm and steered her away from the crowd. She was momentarily relieved to see it was the Doctor and not some stranger, but then she worried she was in for another lecture. So far, the test didn't seem to be going well.

The Doctor led her away from the fire and over to one of the food stalls at the edge of the clearing. There were tables clustered in front of the stall, and there were a few oil lamps to illuminate the quickly-fading twilight, but there were no customers around; just a hapless vendor manning the counter in the mouth of the tent. The skewered meat he had on display on the countertop was gathering flies.

The Doctor sat Lucy down at one of the tables, and he took an adjacent chair himself.

"Listen, Doctor…" she began, not sure yet how she would defend her actions.

"Let me see your foot," said the Doctor.

"My foot?" Lucy echoed. She looked down at her left leg and saw there were holes burned right through her lovely black slipper. "Oh, I rather liked these shoes," she lamented.

The Doctor regarded her with equal parts strained patience and incredulity as he took a gentle but firm hold on her shin and lifted her foot up for his inspection. He peeled away the burnt remains of her shoe and examined her foot with a critical eye.

On the left side of her foot, where the holes had burned through the shoe, her skin was bright red, with some very realistic looking blisters.

The Doctor actually looked upset by the apparent burns. "I'm sorry, Ensign," he said in a low voice.

"What for?" said Lucy.

He gestured at her foot. "I shouldn't have altered the safety parameters," he said.

A little smile crossed Lucy's lips. "It's not real," she told him, _sotto voce_.

The Doctor's eyebrow arched. "Do you not feel anything from this injury, Ensign?" he said.

Lucy shook her head. "Not a thing," she said. "It's holographic."

The Doctor took a deep breath and let it out in a sad sigh. "I'm afraid it's not," he said. "Believe me, I know the difference."

Lucy's eyebrows shot up. "What? But… I mean…"

"It appears your pain receptors are still not operating normally," said the Doctor. "I would surmise that, above a certain threshold level, they shut off completely."

Lucy shook her head. "But even with the safety protocols dialed down, they still should have…"

The Doctor shook his head and picked up her ruined shoe. "The fire was only hot enough to create superficial inflammation," he said, "and the heat should have dissipated instantaneously, the moment the computer detected stress in your epithelial cells. Unfortunately, it seems the heat was still enough to melt the fabric of your shoe." He held the shoe up for her to examine. "It's not holographic, remember?"

Lucy nodded, understanding clearly. The melted material of the shoe would have stuck to the skin of her foot and retained heat even after the fire's heat had vanished. What's more, its high specific heat capacity meant it would convey that heat into her foot much more efficiently than the fire alone would have done.

"It's not the fire that burned you. It was your shoe," said the Doctor. "Appropriately rigorous safety protocols would have caught it."

Lucy waved her hand to dismiss the Doctor's train of thought. "It was my own fault for jumping into the fire," she said. "You _did_ warn me."

The Doctor shook his head, not accepting her consolation. "Computer," he called, "Add one standard-issue sickbay hypospray to the currently running program, and place it in my hand." He held out his hand, and a holographic hypospray appeared in it. "Now, replicate two milligrams of Hyronalin solution, standard medical concentration for a healthy Human adult, and store the solution in this hypospray."

Lucy wasn't aware that the Holodeck's replicators could create actual medicine. Mostly, they were used to make food and drink, as well as some basic things like loose dirt and airborne particulates; things that photons and force fields had a hard time simulating, but which were cheap and easy to replicate.

Still, she supposed, if a Holodeck could replicate a convincing and nutritionally complete meal, there was no reason it couldn't replicate certain medicines. She had to hand it to the Doctor for mastering the finer points of Holodeck operations. But if anyone would have that expertise, Lucy supposed it made sense for a holographic doctor.

The Doctor applied the hypospray to Lucy's burned foot. It was already looking better before he even administered the medicine, but immediately afterward the skin of her foot lost all redness, and the blisters shrank away as if by magic.

"There," said Lucy, and she smiled brightly for the Doctor's benefit, "All better."

He didn't look particularly happy, but he offered a grudging nod of acknowledgment. "Computer," said the Doctor, "Restore safety protocols to default parameters, authorization—"

"Belay that," Lucy called out. "Doctor, I hope you aren't failing me already."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "It's not a pass-fail evaluation, Ensign. The assessment will continue. I'm merely correcting an oversight that my carelessness allowed in the first place."

Lucy shook her head. "I don't agree, Doctor. I'll admit, I wasn't fully convinced that you had the… boldness to actually alter the safety parameters. I was halfway convinced it was a bluff. But I have to say, I'm impressed. Now that I know… I'm going to have to take it much more seriously."

The Doctor pressed his lips in a thin line and stared at her for a moment. "I had hoped that you would have taken this seriously all along," he said.

"How can I?" Lucy shrugged. "If I know I can do whatever I want without any harm, it's bound to affect my judgment, whether I want it to or not."

The Doctor looked away for a moment and nodded to himself. "Alright, Ensign Kang. If you'll promise to look after yourself from here on, I'll leave the parameters as they are."

Lucy smiled again. "Great. Before we get back to it, though, can I get a new shoe?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid not, Ensign. Consequences."

Lucy rolled her eyes, and she grabbed the burnt shoe off of the table where the Doctor had left it. "Fine," she said, stressing the "F" to convey her displeasure. She pulled the tattered remains of the shoe back over her left foot and rose to her feet. She looked out at the bonfire and scanned the crowd, wondering where the little girl and her angry mother had gone. She spotted them by a covered wagon along the far boundary of the fairgrounds. The little girl was sitting on the ground, bawling, and the mother was facing the other direction, towering over the two older children and scolding them.

"Doctor, is there anything you can do for that little girl?"

The Doctor's eyebrow arched as he considered the suggestion. "You took a course in field medicine in the Academy, didn't you?"

Lucy nodded her understanding. She didn't remember many details from that course, other than how to operate the various tools from a standard Starfleet field medic's kit. Still, she'd spent half her life studying biochemistry. She was confident she could come up with something. So, she scanned the fairgrounds with her eyes, looking for resources she might be able to put to use.

She formed a plan of action reasonably quickly, and without another word, she set off to carry it out.

First, Lucy paid a visit to the "Oriental" tent, where she negotiated with a purveyor of "exotic" spices for a few grams of turmeric. She handed one of her six coins to the shopkeeper and gave the bottle of turmeric to the Doctor to carry, then she cut across the field to a less-reputable-looking stall with a sign that just said "SPIRITS," where she ordered a "shot" (about thirty milliliters, she judged) of high-proof whiskey. She paid the barkeep a Franc and got a few smaller coins in exchange.

Lucy handed the small glass of liquor to the Doctor. "Who was it that said shopping was a 'pointless pursuit,' again?" she asked the Doctor.

The Doctor just harrumphed, and they moved on.

Next, Lucy stopped by a scraggly little willow tree she spotted growing in the middle of the fairground. She tore away a few thin strips of bark and moved on. Then she delved back into the merchant stalls near the entrance, where she found a merchant at a textile stall packing up his wares. At first, he refused to barter with her, simply insisting, "Shop's closed. Come back in the morning." But a little harmless flirting and a jingle of her coin purse changed his tune, and she was able to buy a couple rolls of clean cotton fabric for a Franc.

And so, with her hands and the Doctor's both full of improvised medical equipment, they made their way back across the fairground, to where the mother was still looking after her wayward brood. Lucy hoped she could convince the mother to put her anger aside and accept some help.

When the woman spotted Lucy coming, she was holding the injured child against her shoulder, rocking her side-to-side. Her other two children stood in the shadow of the covered wagon that Lucy suspected must have belonged to their family. They looked very sullen. Doubtless, their mother had given them a very stern lecture about playing near the fire.

The woman cringed visibly when she recognized Lucy. Lucy did her best to convey her positive intentions in her bearing and her expression.

"Hello," said Lucy. "I'm Lucy. I wanted to apologize."

The woman looked away and down for a moment before meeting Lucy's eyes again. "I am the one who is sorry," she said. "I wasn't aware of the situation."

Lucy nodded. "It's ok. I'd like to do what I can for your daughter if it's alright with you."

The woman's expression took on a shade of suspicion. "Are you a nurse?"

Lucy cast a sidelong glance at the Doctor before replying, "Not exactly, but I work with a doctor, and I do have some training."

The woman pinched her lips, considering, before nodding. She shifted the weight of her little girl against her left hip, freed up her right hand, and extended it to Lucy. "I'm Collette," she said. "This is Ginger."

Lucy shook her hand and gave a bright smile, which Collette returned rather weakly. "It's good to meet you, Collette. Ginger."

Collette carried the girl over to the wagon, where a soft quilt had been laid out on the tailgate. She eased the girl down onto the quilt. The girl looked like she'd cried herself halfway to sleep, but now she sat on the quilt and rubbed her bleary eyes with the back of her hand.

"Doctor, could you go to that tea stall over there and see if you can trouble them for some boiled water?" said Lucy. She handed the Doctor a Franc. He met her eye and nodded, then turned and walked away.

"He's a doctor?" said Collette.

Lucy stared back at her for a split second, considering how to respond. "That's his name."

Collette looked only slightly less confused as she replied, "Ah."

Lucy turned and approached the little girl, careful to maintain a friendly bearing.

The little girl looked up at her, and her eyes went wide when recognition dawned.

"Hello Ginger," said Lucy, and she gestured to herself with one hand. "I'm Lucy."

The little girl's eyes darted between Lucy and her mother. She exchanged a few quick words with her mother in French, but Lucy found she was able to follow their conversation surprisingly well.

"I'm scared," Ginger said.

"It's ok, baby," said Collette. "Lucy is a nurse."

"Really?" said Ginger. She wiped her eye again and looked Lucy up and down critically. "Will I get a candy?"

Lucy smiled. She tried to come up with the French words for what she wanted to say, and she found the words rather easily. "After I finish your treatment," said Lucy, "If it's ok with your mother."

Ginger smiled back, and Lucy set to work. First, she rolled up a small strip of the willow bark into a ball and told Ginger to chew on it. "It's not sweet like candy, but it will help make the pain go away," she said.

Ginger studied the bark for just a second before popping it in her mouth. She immediately made a grimace and puckered her lips like she was about to spit it out again.

"Uh!" said Lucy, stopping her with a raised finger, "Don't spit it out! You have to chew on it like bubble gum, or it won't work."

Ginger didn't look happy, but she nodded mutely and began chewing.

"Good," said Lucy. "Willow bark contains a natural medicine," she told the girl, "called acetylsalicylic acid. Isn't that a funny name?"

Ginger nodded, but without humor.

"Hard to say, too," said Lucy, "So we just call it Aspirin."

The Doctor returned with a bowl of hot, clean water.

" _Merci_ , Doctor," said Lucy. She was still thinking in French and didn't see the need to switch back for the sake of the Doctor, who was programmed in thousands of languages.

The Doctor acknowledged her gratitude with a nod.

"Ginger, this might sting some, but I have to wash your legs off to protect you from germs." Lucy tore off a square of fabric from one of her linens, dipped it in the bowl of water, and went to work.

She kept talking to Ginger as she worked, distracting her from the pain. "Do you know what germs are?" she asked.

Ginger shook her head. Lucy reminded herself that Ginger was from a time before Federation educational standards, and she pondered on how best to explain the concept to a pre-information age five-year-old.

"Germs are teeny-tiny creatures, smaller than you can see, and they go around and make people sick. They're what gives people colds, and chicken pox, and—"

Ginger was suddenly smiling, almost laughing.

"What?" said Lucy, confused but delighted to see the girl smile.

"What's chicken pox?"

Lucy wondered if she'd remembered the wrong farm bird for which this long-extinct disease was named, and then she realized she'd mistranslated the term. In French, it wasn't named for a farm animal at all.

" _Varicelle_ ," Lucy corrected herself. "Chicken pox is just what they called it where I'm from."

Ginger laughed lightly. "That's a much funnier name."

"It is, isn't it?" said Lucy. She sat back and looked at Ginger's delicately washed little feet and legs. "All clean!" She was pleased to see that the callouses on the bottoms of her perpetually-bare feet had protected them from what otherwise would have been the most serious burns, and there were only a few small blisters on her legs. They looked to be the marks left by small sparks and embers that landed on her in the fire pit. Other than that, her legs had never actually touched the flames. There was still a lot of inflammation and redness from the heat, though.

"That doesn't look so bad," she said. "You'll be better in no time."

Next, Lucy tore off another square of linen and dipped it in her glass of whiskey, hoping that the Holodeck would treat the replicated synthehol like ethanol for the sake of the simulation. "Do you know what this is?" she asked.

Ginger nodded. "Uh huh, that's whiskey."

"Yeah, that's right," she said, confused and worried for the girl. What five-year-old kid knew about whiskey but not germs? "Whiskey contains alcohol," she said.

Ginger smiled smugly. "I know."

"You know," Lucy echoed. "Of course you do. You're so smart!"

Ginger crossed her arms over her chest in challenge. "Mommy says whiskey is the devil's drink."

"Well…" said Lucy, "That's because it makes you sick if you drink it. But if you just dab it on your boo-boos like this…" She dabbed one of Ginger's blisters with the alcohol, and the girl went tense at the sudden sting. "...then it can _keep_ you from getting sick."

"It hurts!" said Ginger.

Lucy nodded. "I know, sweetheart. I'm sorry. You know medicine stings sometimes, doesn't it?"

Fresh tears were rolling down Ginger's cheeks, but she nodded solemnly. Lucy proceeded to dab some of the whiskey on each of Ginger's blisters. "You're doing good, sweety… almost done… one more… there. That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Ginger sniffled and started shaking her head, then changed her mind and nodded instead.

Lucy couldn't help but laugh a little. She stifled it under a sympathetic moan. "Oh, I'm sorry, dear. But the worst is over now, ok? You'll start feeling better soon. I promise."

At that, Lucy took one of the rolled up linen strips and dipped it quickly in the water, getting the fabric moist but not saturated. Then she unrolled the fabric on the tailgate of the wagon and stretched it flat.

"Now, I'm going to make you some special bandages," said Lucy. She took her small jar of turmeric and held it up for the girl. "This is called turmeric. Do you know what that is?"

Ginger shook her head.

"It's a spice. Like…" Lucy cast about for a spice that might have been common in this geographical area in this time period. "Like ginger! Like your name. People put this in their food to make it taste good."

"Like candy?" said Ginger.

Lucy shook her head. "No, not like candy, like… vegetables and meat."

Ginger made a face.

"You don't like vegetables and meat?"

"Veggies. Yuck!"

Lucy knit her brow in consternation. What healthy child didn't like _any_ vegetables? What did they even feed children in this era?

"You can't hate _all_ vegetables," said Lucy.

She began taking pinches of turmeric and sprinkling it on the moistened linen.

"Can so," said Ginger.

"What about carrots?"

Ginger shook her head.

"Squashes?"

The girl stuck out her tongue.

"I used to _love_ rutabaga as a girl. You _must_ like rutabaga."

"Ew, no! What's a rupabaga?"

When she was done sprinkling the turmeric, Lucy folded the bandage lengthwise over itself and started rubbing the fabric, working the turmeric into the moistened fibers, careful not to touch the inner surface of the fabric with her bare hands.

"It's… like a cross between a potato and a radish," said Lucy.

"Yuck!"

"You've never even tried it!"

Next, Lucy tore the bandage lengthwise, dividing it into two strips. Then she took one of the strips started at the end of the little girl's left foot and began wrapping up along the length of her leg.

"Anyway," said Lucy, "Turmeric is not only a spice. It's also a medicine that's been known to the people way on the far side of the continent for hundreds of years."

"What's a compinent?"

"It's… the land. The land that reaches from the ocean in the West, thousands of kilometers, to the ocean in the East. People who live over there have very different lives than people here have, even though people are basically the same everywhere."

"What do they look like?"

"Like… lots of different ways. Some look like me. My ancestors are from there."

"Really?"

"Uh huh."

"Is that how come you have tum-um… tumminic?"

Lucy laughed. "No. I got this at that stall over there," she said, waving in the general direction of the "Oriental" stall.

Ginger was quiet for a moment as Lucy finished wrapping one leg and started on the other. Then she whispered, "Is it magic?"

"What, turmeric?"

Ginger nodded.

Lucy shook her head. "Nope. Science. Turmeric has a chemical called 'curcumin' that has anti-inflammatory properties."

Ginger just stared at her.

"That means it can make your legs feel better," said Lucy. "But it's because nature is amazing, not because of magic."

'Oh. Ok," said Ginger. That answer had apparently satisfied her curiosity on the subject.

"There you go!" said Lucy, "All done!"

Ginger examined her little legs, splayed out before her, all wrapped up in white bandages.

"What do we say, darling?" Collette asked her daughter.

Ginger thought for a moment, then brightened when she realized she knew the answer. "Je vous remercie!" she said, and then, in an attempt at English, "Sankoo!"

Lucy smiled wide and replied in English, "You're welcome, Ginger."

Then Ginger cast a glance at her mother before hesitantly addressing Lucy again. "Candy?"

Lucy looked to Collette for permission.

"Oh, that's fine," she said, "You've already done more than enough for us."

Lucy shook her head. "Nonsense. I'd like to do whatever I can for her."

Then she said to Ginger in French, "Now keep chewing that willow bark until I get back, ok? Then you can spit it out."

Ginger looked a little worried. She confessed, "I swallowed it."

"Oh!" Lucy laughed. "That's ok! It won't hurt you. I'll be right back."

Lucy turned around and walked back into the crowds of the festival, hunting for some sort of confectionery stall.

"I didn't know you spoke French, Ensign," said the Doctor.

Lucy stopped in her tracks and looked at the Doctor for a moment. "Neither did I," she said. "I guess I just sort of… picked it up."

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "What, just now? Out of the blue?"

Lucy nodded. Looking back, it had been very strange.

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully to himself. "The implant in your brain must act like a universal translator."

"Well, that's kind of nifty," said Lucy.

"Doesn't it bother you, though, Ensign? This means the implant is interfacing directly with your consciousness and supplementing your cognition without your awareness."

Lucy shrugged. "So far, it seems harmless."

The Doctor did not appear comforted. "So far," he emphasized.

They found a stall selling brickle, and Lucy bought a small piece for Ginger. The girl was supremely pleased when she returned with it.

"Now, you'll need to change her bandages in an hour or so," she told Collette. "You don't want to leave moist fabric on her skin for too long, and the grains of turmeric might start acting like an irritant as the fabric dries out. You can use the rest of that roll of linen I was using or any clean fabric. Do you have any soap or antiseptic?"

"I have soap, yes," said Collette.

"Ok," said Lucy, "You'll want to wash her legs with clean, soapy water, rinse thoroughly, and dry thoroughly when you change her bandages. Other than that, have her keep her legs elevated tonight, and don't let her walk around in the morning if you notice her feet swelling. If she develops a fever, take her to a doctor right away." Lucy glanced over at little Ginger, still sitting on the tailgate with her bandaged legs spread out in front of her, chewing happily on the brickle. "Otherwise, I'm confident she'll be just fine."

As Lucy and the Doctor walked away, she wondered privately if the girl would really be just fine. Her family seemed poor even by local standards, her mother seemed ill-equipped to handle the three children, and there was no sign of a second parent or any support from extended family.

Lucy supposed it would be a moot point when the program ended, and Ginger and her family effectively ceased to exist. Lucy had to remind herself that the girl had emerged fully formed from the void less than an hour ago, and her existence was defined by a block of code too simple, shallow, and straightforward to resemble true consciousness, no matter how convincing the illusion was.

Still, it gave Lucy a sort of empty feeling to think about the impending end of the girl's existence, and so she stopped.

Lucy turned to the Doctor. "So, was that it? The whole test? Or is there more?"

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. "Technically, the evaluation hasn't even gotten fully underway, yet."

"What?" Lucy exclaimed, "You mean all that was just a waste of time?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I wouldn't say so. I found it very interesting to watch. Very informative. You seized on a background detail in the program that I doubt even the designers had considered very deeply, and you managed to spin it out into an entirely improvised storyline, winning over some of the holo-characters in the process. Who knows? It might factor in the rest of the program."

"In that case, when does the main event start?"

"Oh, quite soon, I should think," said the Doctor. "If you're hungry, you'd better hurry and find some food. Things are just about to heat up."


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

"Here we go again," said Tom. He was seated on Chakotay's left, in the pilot seat of the shuttlecraft. Tuvok, Torres, and Kim filled out the rest of the party.

Ahead of the shuttle, the violet eye of the wormhole loomed large. Chakotay found that the experience of having passed through the aperture twice already wasn't helping his stomach. His guts knew exactly what to expect, and it prepared for the ride by thrashing around inside of him well in advance.

Chakotay cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the other three occupants of the shuttlecraft. Ensign Kim in the back looked about as green as Chakotay felt. Tuvok looked positively bored, as usual for the Vulcan. Torres was eyeing the wormhole with unwary fascination. She was obviously not prepared for the rough road that lay ahead.

Chakotay caught her eye and flashed her an enigmatic smile that she clearly couldn't interpret, and then they passed into the wormhole.

A slight shimmy rattled through the spaceframe of the shuttlecraft, and then they were out on the other side. That was it. No sudden jolt to the inertial dampeners, and no abrupt torque on the shuttle's nose cone, either.

"What, that was it?" said Torres. "I was expecting…" She shrugged.

Chakotay gave Lieutenant Paris a questioning look.

"Don't look at me, sir," said Tom, "I only _wish_ I could take the credit."

Ensign Kim consulted his console. "Variances inside of the wormhole were down in the two millicochrane range," he said. "Telemetry suggests the wormhole spontaneously stabilized in the last seconds before we made the passage."

"And now, the wormhole is returning to its previous degree of instability," Tuvok reported, consulting his own console. "It would appear that some external force acted momentarily to ensure our safe passage."

As Chakotay considered that bit of information, Ensign Kim ran more scans of the space surrounding the abandoned station. Lieutenant Torres tore her attention from the stunning view outside with an effort and turned her attention to her own console.

"The power output of the station is roughly twice what it was the last time we were here, Commander," said Ensign Kim.

"At least," Torres added. "And the power seems more stable and distributed around the station than what the telemetry from your last mission recorded."

"I guess the station's been doing some straightening up since our last visit," said Chakotay. He was just considering hailing the station again when his communications board lit up.

A tone sounded from Ensign Kim's ops console, and he announced, "Commander, we're being hailed."

"I see that, Ensign," said Chakotay, and he opened a channel with the press of a button.

Lieutenant Paris said, "Commander, are you sure that's such a good idea?" but it was already done.

Chakotay just regarded Tom with a cocked eyebrow and a slight shrug.

"Welcome, returning customers!" The voice of the station resembled the voice from the last visit in inflection and tone only. Where before it had been grating and artificial, it now sounded as clear and natural as organic speech.

It went on, "You've reached the Delurididug Deep Space Travel Network and Trade Hub. Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Travel Network is currently unavailable. However, the Trade Hub is open for business! We are currently transmitting your instructions for docking."

Chakotay's console received a packet of data from the station, which the computer was able to compile into a simple, graphically represented set of docking instructions. The voice from the station continued talking without pause.

"Please be patient while those ships in the queue ahead of yours finish their approaches and departures. Visitors will be cleared to dock in the same order that they arrived through the gateways."

Chakotay glanced around the empty space around the station and exchanged a look with Lieutenant Paris. Tom shook his head. No one else was out there.

The automated voice went on, "All forms of faster-than-light travel and remote matter transference are prohibited inside of Hub Space. Any unwarranted act of violence or aggression against the Hub, the Network, the proprietors of the Hub, or other visitors to the Hub or Network is also prohibited. All contracts joined in good faith within the confines of Hub Space are binding. The Hub and its licensed proprietors reserve the right to withhold service from any customer for any reason. The Hub and the Network are committed to upholding the laws of the Delurididug Trade Federation, as well as the laws specific to the nationalities of each customer, subject to the limits of Trade Federation Law. The Delurididug Trade Hub is empowered by the Delurididug Trade Federation to enforce all binding contracts within the limits of Trade Federation law. Violations of binding contracts are subject to summary arbitration, and may result in confiscation of trade goods or formally recognized legal tender, expulsion from Hub Space, arrest pending trial in a Trade Federation Tribunal, or any combination of the above, subject to the judgment of the administration of the Trade Hub and within the limits of Trade Federation Law.

"For more on the rules, regulations, and policies governing the Trade Hub Station and its surrounding space, please refer to the terms of service that are being transmitted now." Chakotay studied his console as the computer received another data packet and compiled it into an encyclopedia-sized volume of alien legalese.

"Tuvok, I'm sending you their rulebook. See if there's anything in the rules about restricted areas. Maybe we can narrow down the possible locations of the computer core or their power generators, based on where they don't want us to go. And while you're at it, see if there's a procedure in place for filing complaints."

"Aye, sir," said Tuvok.

"Respectfully, sir," said Paris, "Do you really think there's someone over there that handles complaints?"

Chakotay shrugged. "We still don't know the capabilities of the station, especially now that it's regained so much function. But it's clearly highly automated, and it seems to put a lot of value in laws and contracts. We might be able to use that to learn more about what's happening to Ensign Kang, and hopefully, how to reverse it."

"You're not seriously counting on that station to respect Federation laws, are you?" said Torres. " _Our_ Federation, that is."

"I'm not counting on anything, Lieutenant," said Chakotay, "Just exploring all options."

Harry shook his head, but he didn't look up from his console.

"Something the matter, Ensign?" said Chakotay.

"No, sir," said Harry. "Just… I keep thinking about Neelix's ghost story."

Chakotay's reply was interrupted by the voice of the station. "Thank you for your patience. Your vessel has been cleared to dock. We are sending you an updated flight plan to guide you to your berth. Any deviation from the flight plan is grounds to revoke your boarding privileges and move your vessel to the back of the queue. Repeated or flagrant violations may lead to expulsion from Hub Space.

"If you prefer, you may turn over guidance to the Trade Hub guidance system, and we will guide your vessel into its berth."

"Fat chance," Tom remarked.

Chakotay's console received the flight plan, and he sent it over to Tom. "Just stick to the flight plan, Tom. I'd hate to have to wait in that line again," he deadpanned.

Tom gave Chakotay a quizzical glance, and Chakotay favored him with a slight smile.

With a smirk, Tom turned his attention back to his console and punched a series of instructions into the shuttle's guidance system. "Aye, sir. Course laid in and plotted."

"Take us in," said Chakotay.

They entered the station through the same port as on their previous visit. Inside the bay, conditions had changed markedly. The atmosphere and gravity were the same, but the illumination had increased significantly, owing to an array of free-floating orbs of yellow-white light that hovered over the hangar bay like little Suns, giving the space an inviting, almost Earth-like quality.

Tom set the shuttle down exactly where the flight plan indicated and ran quickly through his power-down checklist while the rest of the crew gave their reports on the station. When they were ready, Tuvok opened the shuttle door.

And he froze in the doorway.

His expression betrayed no surprise or confusion, so it took a moment for Chakotay to understand why the security chief had paused in place. Chakotay looked out through the door and found a man standing in the docking bay at the bottom of the shuttle's shallow ramp, hands spread wide in greeting.

He looked human, with dusky but not dark features, slightly wavy, short, dark brown hair, the barest hint of points to his ears, the slightest upward angle of his eyebrows, and deep wrinkles in the center of his forehead that might have been the beginning of a cranial ridge. He had a wide smile, and his teeth were perfectly even and dazzlingly white. He wore a loose-fitting, flowing three-piece outfit woven from dark gray and deep burgundy fabrics, with curious accents of hardened leather on the shoulders and forearms, as if he were trying to split the difference between a traditional Terran suit, a Vulcan dignitary robe, and ceremonial Klingon armor.

Tuvok overcame his momentary surprise and brought his tricorder to bear on the stranger.

"Welcome to the Delurididug Trade Hub," said the stranger. "I'm your host and point of contact for all of your questions and concerns regarding the station. You can call me Hux."

"It's a projection, sir," said Tuvok.

Hux's smile grew even wider. "Well spotted, Lieutenant!" he said. "When your party is prepared, I can lead you to any of the publicly available levels of the station." Turning to Chakotay, he said, "Tell me, how long can we expect to have the pleasure of your company, Commander…"

"Chakotay," said Chakotay. He was quietly impressed that the projection was apparently able to read and interpret his provisional rank insignia. Clearly, the station had gathered quite a bit of information on its deep dive through the shuttle's computer core. He wondered if it didn't already know each of their names, and was only letting him introduce himself as a matter of politeness.

Remembering the projection had asked him a question, Chakotay added, "I'm not sure. It will depend on… how we might be able to help each other."

Hux nodded. "I look forward to discussing that with you. For now, let's adjourn to a reception area, shall we?"

Chakotay glanced back at his away team and verified that they were all ready to proceed.

"Lead the way," he said.

Hux led the away team towards the doors at the edge of the docking bay. Chakotay was gratified to see that his officers instinctively arrayed themselves in a rough pentagon, tricorders out and scanning their surroundings, phasers holstered but charged. No one needed to be reminded that they were still boarding a dangerous and unpredictable relic of an ancient and powerful civilization, regardless of the warm welcome they'd received thus far.

When they reached the doorway, Hux stopped and addressed the party.

"Now, those of you who have visited the Hub in the past are no doubt familiar with the scanner up ahead. For the rest of you, there's no cause for alarm. The scanner is completely harmless. It provides the Trade Hub with a set of individualized biometrics in order to tailor our services for each individual. It's also a security feature. The scanner will catalog your sidearms and any other self-defense implements on your person, as well as any hazardous materials you might be carrying. Now, before you start to worry, allow me to reassure you that the Trade Hub does not make a habit of confiscating instruments of self-defense. However, we do employ a wide variety of neutralizing countermeasures in the event of accidental discharges or attempts at violence between guests. Your safety is among our highest priorities. If there are any questions about that, I'd be happy to answer them."

The others looked to Chakotay, and Hux seemed to follow their lead.

Chakotay supposed it was a safe bet that the station was familiar with their phasers, seeing as it seemed to know everything else about them. He supposed there was no point in playing his cards close to his chest.

"My away team is equipped with phased nadion beam weapons, calibrated to stun an attacker with non-lethal force. The Trade Hub won't interfere with their functioning?"

"Ah! Phasers are a classic, tried-and-true instrument of choice for a civilized society. And with a stun setting functionality! I applaud you on your choice. Humane, non-lethal weapons are truly a distinction of an advanced culture. Of course, the Trade Hub will not interfere with the operation of your weapons. However, if any of them should happen to discharge during your stay in the Trade Hub, our countermeasures will neutralize their effect. The only exception is in the highly unlikely event that a rogue actor somehow manages to circumvent station security and take aggressive actions against members of your party. In such a case, the Trade Hub will not interfere in your legally recognized right to defend yourselves. However, any collateral damage that you might incur in such an event will need to be settled before you depart."

Chakotay nodded his understanding. "We're also carrying subspace transceivers and general purpose handheld scanners. These will also be allowed to operate without interference?"

"Of course!" said Hux, "So long as your instruments aren't used to violate Trade Hub regulations or terms of service, we will not interfere with their operation in any way. Now, are there any more questions?"

Chakotay glanced at the other members of the away team, inviting them to speak up if they could think of anything else to ask.

"No?" said Hux, "Excellent. Let's proceed."

The projection passed through the doorway. Chakotay waved Tuvok through, and the familiar lightshow flashed over him as he passed. Chakotay followed after, and the others followed him through, one at a time.

When they were all through, Hux addressed the away team. "Now then, where would you like to begin? I regret that the inoperable state of the Travel Network has left the Trade Hub with a shortage of licensed vendors, but the Trade Hub still provides innumerable automated services and unique goods of sale that I guarantee, you will not find anywhere else in the galaxy. Based on your consumer history, can I suggest we proceed to the Aug-Tech Parlor, first?"

Chakotay exchanged nonplussed expressions Tom and B'elanna.

"What's that?" said Chakotay.

"Aug-Tech? Why, it's our line of trademarked, consumer-grade, biosynthetic augmentation technologies, of course!"

"Is that where we went on our previous visit?" said Chakotay.

"Why, yes. Are you interested in augmenting another member of your party? Or perhaps you're interested in purchasing one of our Aug-Tech augments for your crew? They're highly customizable, able to fill a vast array of functions with greater efficiency than you've ever dreamed possible. Whether you're in need of soldiers, technicians, _recreational_ specialists..." He finished with a wink, making it all-too-clear what kind of 'recreation' he was referring to.

Chakotay tasted bile. With effort, he restrained his anger.

"Now, hold on!" said Lieutenant Torres. The same outrage that Chakotay felt was clear on the half-Klingon engineer's face. Chakotay held up his hand to forestall an imminent outburst. Torres met his eyes and nodded her understanding.

"Explain these augments to me, please," said Chakotay.

"Could you specify?" said Hux, "What exactly would you like me to explain?"

"Are your augments living, sentient beings? Do they have any rights at all, or are they just… slaves?"

Hux seemed confused by the question for just a moment before realization dawned. "Ah. I see your confusion," said Hux. "It seems such practices are illegal in your civilization."

Chakotay nodded. "Yes, they certainly are."

"Hm. Well then, I'm afraid we can't sell you any augments after all. It is the policy of the Hub never to facilitate activities that are classified as unlawful in the civilizations of our guests, you see. I'm terribly sorry if that poses any inconvenience."

"What if we wished to secure the freedom of your augments?" said Chakotay.

"I'm afraid that's a legal impossibility," said Hux. "Delurididug policy prevents the release of any goods or services without payment, and as we've already established, it is illegal in your 'United Federation of Planets' to exchange payment for sentient goods."

Chakotay thought for a moment. "So you're saying I can't buy their freedom, because according to your policies, I would first have to buy _them_?"

"Hm," said Hux, mulling over that explanation. "Rather, the problem is that in their current form, our augments cannot qualify as 'free' individuals, due to the nature of their augmentations. In order to classify the augments as 'free,' they would first require further augmentation, in contradiction of your laws. It's something of a 'catch twenty-two,' if I understand that expression."

Chakotay nodded to himself. It presented something of a legal quagmire, and it appeared the station computer wasn't likely to bend on the letter of the law—not Delurididug or Federation. He thought of the pillars of cryogenically preserved organic matter they'd discovered on their previous visit. Whatever unfortunate souls occupied those pillars would likely carry on in that preserved state for untold millennia, until the station succumbed to entropy or some other visitor happened to encounter the wormhole.

He couldn't stomach the thought of leaving them to their fate. He'd keep working the problem. For now, though, he had higher priorities, and Hux had given him an idea.

"In that case, it seems we have a problem," said Chakotay.

"Oh dear," said Hux, suddenly the very picture of concern. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"On our previous visit, your station's augmentation technology attacked a member of my crew and performed augmentations without her consent," said Chakotay.

Hux's brows knitted in concentration. "Let me see..." he said, and he stared into space for a moment. "Hm."

"If you can provide us with the means, we'd like to reverse the damage that was done to her," Chakotay pressed.

"There are a number of irregularities in our records for your previous visit," said Hux. "Unfortunately, it seems your visit occurred while we were performing some minor systems maintenance. As a result, we've lost a little bit of data. I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience."

"Minor systems maintenance?" Harry echoed in disbelief.

Chakotay threw him a look, and Harry acknowledged with a nod, saying nothing more.

"Do your records show that your… augmentation machine was activated?" said Chakotay.

Hux nodded. "We have a complete record of Ensign Lucille Kang's Aug-Tech procedure," he said. "However, we're missing records on the transaction."

"There was no transaction," said Chakotay.

Hux's eyebrows shot up. "Commander Chakotay, it is illegal under your laws as well as ours to steal intellectual property and services."

That brought Chakotay up short. He feared he was dangerously close to turning the entire station hostile.

"' _Steal?!_ '" said Tom, "She was attacked!"

"Stand down, Lieutenant!" said Chakotay. Tom looked ready to carry on, but he pinched his lips shut.

"We certainly never intended to break any laws," said Chakotay. "It seems the process was triggered accidentally. Neither party was at fault."

A disgusted sound escaped Torres' lips. Chakotay let it slide.

"Well, regardless, we'll need to settle your account," said Hux.

"I'm sorry?" said Chakotay.

"Your Ensign Kang is in possession of unlicensed Delurididug intellectual property," said Hux.

"We would be very happy to return your property," said Chakotay, "Provided it can be done without harming the ensign."

Hux shook his head. "Our IP includes genetic modifications as well as biosynthetic implants. Ensign Kang is a citizen of Earth colony Alpha Centauri and an officer in Starfleet, both of which forbid genetic modifications for non-life threatening conditions. We cannot remove our property without violating the laws of her government."

Chakotay felt frustration nipping at his heels. He took a calming breath before responding. "You're misinterpreting our laws."

Hux shook his head. "I'm sorry, but they're quite clear."

"Our courts have always made exceptions for the reversal of alien genetic tampering. There are centuries of precedent!"

Hux scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment. "Yes, I see. Your legal system allows for the reinterpretation of laws by the judiciary through judgments on specific cases. An interesting system. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any court documents in your vessel's database."

"Well, we don't travel everywhere with an exhaustive history of legal precedents… We represent hundreds of worlds, some of which have legal systems stretching back millennia."

Hux shook his head. "No civilization is too great or too small to respect the rule of law."

Chakotay rolled his eyes. "If I can return here with a relevant selection of legal precedents, will you help us then?"

Hux cocked his head to the side. "I'll need the complete laws of Alpha Centauri, Earth, Vulcan, and the United Federation of Planets, all Starfleet rules and regulations, the tribal customs of Trebus, and comprehensive legal histories for each."

"Vulcan?" Chakotay echoed, "Trebus?" He couldn't help an amused huff at the unexpected reference to his home planet. "What do they have to do with this?"

"Ensign Vorik and yourself are citizens of each, respectively," said Hux. "As the involved parties, your laws are highly relevant to this case."

Chakotay shook his head. "My homeworld doesn't record legal histories. Our customs are kept by our Elders, not stored in a computer, and they don't apply here."

Hux shrugged. "As I have no prior information to verify or refute your claim, I'll have to accept it at face value. I will still need the other items on that list, however."

"Very well," said Chakotay. "After I bring all that you've asked, what happens?"

"We'll begin the process of summary arbitration. You will need to decide whether to wait until living arbiters can be summoned through the Travel Network, or agree to abide by my judgment. In either case, we will decide the merits of your case according to all relevant legal systems, with Delurididug laws taking highest precedent."

"And if you rule in our favor?" said Chakotay.

"There are a number of factors that will need to be judged," said Hux, "and I am still gathering the facts of the case. However, if all points of contention are judged in your favor, we will reverse the augmentation on your Ensign Kang, if that is your desire."

"We would prefer you gave us the means to reverse her augmentations ourselves," said Chakotay.

Hux shook his head. "I'm afraid our Aug-Tech procedures are a closely guarded trade secret. Could you imagine the harm of such a technology in the wrong hands?"

Chakotay thought of Earth's own fraught history with augments, and he shuttered. The Delurididug augment technology bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Earth's disastrous eugenics experiments and Borg technology, both. "I understand," he said. "Then we'll return with all the requested legal materials."

"Excellent. Oh, but I should inform you that, until such time as all of this unfortunate business is taken care of, your people have been assigned delinquent status in the Trade Hub."

Chakotay blinked. "What does that mean, exactly?"

Hux chose his words with care. "Well, although I know it's all most likely been a big misunderstanding, you're currently still technically suspected of violating Trade Hub terms of service and Delurididug law, as well as of acting in bad faith with the Trade Hub in order to circumvent your own laws."

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Torres exploded. "I've had it up to—"

Without taking his eyes off of the holographic representation, Chakotay threw up a hand, signaling Torres to stand down. Her words died in mid-sentence.

"So what, we won't be allowed to shop?"

Hux winced as if his words hurt to say out loud. "I'm afraid I'll need to detain you, for the time being."

There was a moment of quiet. From the corner of his eye, Chakotay saw Tuvok's hand drift down to the grip of his phaser. But if all of Hux's boasting was to be believed, the phasers would be useless.

"How am I supposed to retrieve the required materials, if I'm to be kept here?" he asked.

"Well, Lieutenants Tuvok and Torres weren't a party to the incident in question, so far as I can ascertain. There's no reason that _they_ can't return to your ship while you stay here."

"I see," said Chakotay.

"Commander," said Torres, "You can't."

Chakotay turned to her and saw the concern on her face.

"It would appear we have no choice," said Tuvok.

"The hell we don't," said Torres, and her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. "We can walk out of here right now! Get back to the shuttle and make a beeline for the wormhole."

Chakotay glanced back at the hologram, standing a few meters away, literally twiddling his thumbs while they conversed quietly amongst themselves. It affected an air of disinterest, but Chakotay didn't doubt that the station heard every word they were saying.

He turned back to Torres. "Leaving aside the fact that we still have no way of knowing what countermeasures the station might have to stop us," he said, "What about Ensign Kang?"

"The Doctor will find a cure," she said, though with slightly less conviction. "We can't give them hostages, Chakotay!"

"They've already got one!" Chakotay caught himself raising his voice and forced himself back to a whisper. "Her body is riddled with their technology! Who knows what they could do to her if we don't play along?

"And there's a bigger picture here, too," he said. "This station has the power to open stable wormholes, Lieutenant! We could go home!"

"He's already told us a dozen times that the Travel Network is broken! What do you think that means?"

Chakotay offered a half smile. "It means they need help fixing it. We still have cards we can play, Lieutenant. Don't forget. They need resources. Why do you think the station's been so friendly with us until now?"

"May I point out," Tuvok interjected, "There is no 'they.' Whatever race constructed this station clearly abandoned it several millennia ago. It is likely their civilization is extinct. The station's A.I. may not have the capacity to bend its strict code of conduct, no matter what we might offer it."

Chakotay shrugged. "It was clearly a capitalist society," he said. "Many criminal infarctions can be settled through the payment of fines."

Tuvok nodded thoughtfully.

"And besides, we're innocent, remember?" Chakotay clapped Tuvok and Torres on their shoulders. "Now, get back to the shuttle. That's an order."

"Before you go," said Hux, "I must add that your case cannot proceed until all defendants are accounted for."

Chakotay turned back to Hux. "You mean Ensign Vorik and Chief Vance?"

"And Ensign Kang, yes," said Hux.

Chakotay's face fell. "I'm not bringing her back on this station until we have an agreement."

"But this _is_ the agreement, Commander," said Hux. He was smiling brightly. "After all, Ensign Kang is an unimpeachable witness. Her augmentations will make it quite impossible for her to lie to the tribunal."

Chakotay felt his anger rising. He took a deep breath, but it was no good. "I'm not bringing her back to the place of her assault, only to let her attacker poke around in her head!" he bellowed.

"Commander, please," said Hux, wearing that shit-eating grin of his. Chakotay came nose-to-nose with the projection, but Hux showed no sign of offense or intimidation. His insubstantial clothing clipped through Chakotay's uniform where they should have been standing chest-to-chest.

"Find another option," said Chakotay.

Hux's smile withered. He shook his head sadly. "You're refusing to cooperate?" he asked, an edge of sorrow in his voice, as if Chakotay had actually hurt his feelings.

Chakotay stepped back a few centimeters. "I'm asking you for an alternative," he said.

"The ensign is in possession of unlicensed Delurididug intellectual property," said Hux. "I need to know it will be returned, even if we rule against you."

Chakotay turned the problem over in his mind, looking for another angle. "What would it cost us to make this all go away?" asked Chakotay. "What fines would we have to pay? What is it that the Delididug even value?"

"The _Delurididug_ ," Hux enunciated, "value the laws that allow diverse species and civilizations to interact in peace, for mutual benefit. The Delurididug value contracts, property rights, and due process."

Chakotay let out a heavy sigh. This damned A.I. wasn't going to budge. "Well, that's good," he said. "We have common ground there."

Chakotay stood up a little straighter. "As the officer in command at the time of the incident, I assume full responsibility."

"Commander, is that wise?" said Tuvok.

"I am the sole liable party," Chakotay insisted. "Any actions carried out by my subordinates were done on my orders. I should face the tribunal alone."

Hux was shaking his head. "Our intellectual property—"

"Will be returned," said Chakotay, "just as soon as this sordid business is dealt with."

Hux studied Chakotay's face for a protracted moment. "Is that your final say on the matter?"

Chakotay nodded.

"Refusal to surrender material evidence will not help your case," Hux warned.

"That 'material evidence' is my officer," said Chakotay. "Your people may believe in treating sentient beings as commodities, but we don't."

Hux nodded. "Well, for what it's worth, if your motives truly are what you claim them to be, then I admire your conviction."

There was a sudden flash, and Chakotay found himself trapped in a cone of silver light. It seemed to be some kind of a confinement beam, paralyzing his arms at his sides and rooting his feet to the floor.

Behind him, Chakotay could hear the rest of the away team scrambling into action. The rising whine of a phaser being dialed up to a higher setting presaged the flash of red-orange phaser light that lit up Chakotay's peripheral vision. It connected with the ceiling where the confinement beam was being emitted, but it didn't seem to have any effect.

Hux watched the away team's scramble politely, the hint of a friendly smile still plastered on his face.

Chakotay worked his jaw and found the confinement beam wouldn't keep him from speaking. "Stand down," he said.

On his left, he could make out Lieutenant Torres approaching the cone of the confinement beam that shrouded him. She tried to reach through it, only to be forcefully pushed back by the beam. She stumbled and almost fell on her back.

"I said stand down!" Chakotay shouted.

"Commander!" Torres protested. Chakotay tried to shake his head and only managed to twitch it a bit to the side.

When the excitement died down, Hux directed his attention to the person just behind Chakotay on his right. "Lieutenant Tuvok, I've detained Commander Chakotay on suspicion of unauthorized access of Trade Hub equipment, theft of material and intellectual property, the use of Trade Hub services to circumvent native legal statutes, and failure to cooperate with Trade Hub authorities. As Commander Chakotay has taken full responsibility for the aforementioned charges, his co-defendants Lieutenant Thomas Paris, Lieutenant Vorik, Ensign Harry Kim, Ensign Lucille Kang, and Chief Petty Officer Owen Vance have been cleared of suspicion. However, none of the listed personnel will be permitted to access the Delurididug Trade Hub or Travel Network until further notice, except for the express purpose of providing testimony for the tribunal or to return Delurididug intellectual and material property.

"Now, if you would please conduct the remaining members of your party back to your vessel and exit Trade Hub Space via the same gateway through which you entered.

"And please, do not return here without the previously agreed upon legal references, as well as any other evidence you believe to be relevant to Commander Chakotay's case."

"Commander?" said Tuvok.

Chakotay managed a small up-and-down twitch of his head that would have to serve as a nod. "Do it, Tuvok. Brief the captain on the situation."

"And please," added Hux, "Consider returning with Ensign Kang. She's absolved of any charges. We need her testimony and our intellectual property, and it would greatly help your Commander's case."

Chakotay bit back the impulse to argue the point. It would be up to Captain Janeway to make the call, now. He knew she would do the right thing.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

" _Zut!_ That test was absolute _merde!_ " said Lucy. She was still enjoying her newfound grasp of twentieth-century French. She'd studied Vulcan and Tellar languages in the Academy just to meet the core requirements, but she never really had a good head for languages. And besides, the universal translator was simply too convenient of a shortcut to even bother. She would have been hard pressed, these days, to recall even the more salient Tellarite curse words. But now, French invectives were free-flowing.

"Whoever wrote that program can _brûle en l'enfer_! And what are you laughing at, Owen?"

She whirled about on the security officer who was escorting her back to sickbay.

Owen pinched his lips tight, trying to hide his mirth and failing. The other security officer, Crewman DeVries, subtly distanced himself from Owen, leaving him to bear the brunt of Lucy's wrath.

"Is it funny to you, that the Doctor is going to judge my fitness as a Starfleet officer on the outcome of a badly written holodeck melodrama?"

After a promising start, the atmospheric Roma carnival setting had dissolved into chaos. A series of contrived plot twists revealed that half the food vendors were actually terrorists. They locked down the fairgrounds and rounded up as many hostages as they could get their hands on. Of course, the task of rescuing everyone fell almost immediately on Lucy. There was never a satisfactory reason given for this. She was simply a stranger in their midst that everyone decided to turn to for leadership.

By this point, Lucy strongly suspected that someone had taken a beautifully crafted holodeck worldspace and overwritten it with the plot of a haphazard, clichéd action/adventure novel.

Owen shook his head. "No. You're right. The Doctor's program was… _merde_." He struggled and failed to hold in a smile.

"Then what's so funny?" Lucy shouted.

"Nothing," said Owen. "It's just… nice to see you getting angry."

"What?" said Lucy. She shook her head in bewilderment. "Why?"

"Just…" Owen cast a glance at Bobby DeVries, and lowered his voice to near-inaudibility. "Since what happened… You haven't once gotten upset about anything."

Lucy blinked. "So what?"

"So it was a really upsetting thing that happened!" he said. "I just… I don't know if you're in denial about it or what, but…"

DeVries cleared his throat, bringing Owen up short.

"Sorry," said Owen, "I'm not supposed to talk about that. Let's just get back to sickbay, ok?"

Lucy didn't move. "I'm not in denial," she said. "I know what was done to me. I feel it, even now. But the worst is long over. I understand why everyone has their doubts, but I wish people would listen to me when I say I'm _fine_!"

Owen sighed. "Well, good. I'm glad you're ok. But I can't help worrying about you, Lucy."

She almost asked "Why," but the look on his face drew her up short. His concerns were etched into the lines around his ice-blue eyes, and deeper emotions seemed to dwell just under the surface of his gaze.

Suddenly, Lucy didn't know what to say. She stared into his eyes for a long moment, looking for a clearer sign of what he was thinking.

Bobby cleared his throat again.

Owen cast an annoyed glance at his colleague, then looked back at Lucy. "Your eyes are changing again," he said.

"Oh?" said Lucy. "Now what are they doing?"

Owen smiled. "They're going back to normal. They're dark brown again, and the makeup is fading, too."

Lucy was relieved to hear it. She glanced down at her arms and saw her porcelain pallor was returning to its natural, olive tones. "Good," she said.

Another beat of silence passed, and suddenly it felt awkward.

"Well, the Doctor's going to start wondering where we are," said Owen.

"Right," said Lucy. "Let's go." She turned around to head towards sickbay, but at the mention of the Doctor, she remembered the bloodbath that the holonovel had become, and her anger returned in force. "But I swear, if he tries to blame me for the outcome of that terrible program…"

"I'll vouch for you," said Owen. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and soothing warmth seemed to suffuse her body from the touch, working wonders for her temper. She was halfway tempted to put her hand over his, until he began gently pushing, trying to urge her back into motion. "You did everything that could be expected from a junior science officer."

The way he qualified his statement rubbed Lucy the wrong way. She pushed his hand away and turned on him again. "What, you think you could have done better?" she challenged.

Owen just pointed down the corridor towards sickbay.

"Hmpf," said Lucy, and she turned around and marched the rest of the way to sickbay without looking back.

"I'm sorry, Ensign, I can't clear you for duty yet."

"Why?" said Lucy, "Because I couldn't save some of the hostages?"

"No, that's not it," said the Doctor.

They were back in the Doctor's office, and Owen and Bobby were back to guarding the entrance to sickbay. For now, Lucy and the Doctor could converse in private.

"What was I supposed to do," said Lucy, "go all Michael Bernam? Maybe that would have worked in that two-bit hack holonovel, but in the real world—"

"I said..." the Doctor tried to talk over her, but Lucy steamrolled forward.

"Those sorts of shoot-from-the-hip heroics just start wars and get people killed! I tried to get into their heads. I tried to find their motivations so I could work out a peaceful resolution! Little did I know, they were all just cartoon villains! If you took me to the holodeck just to play a shoot-em-up, why even—"

"Ensign Kang!" the Doctor shouted, and finally, Lucy broke off her tirade. "Your performance in that… 'two-bit hack holonovel' that _I_ wrote..."

Lucy cringed.

"...is not the issue. The goal was never to judge you by the outcome of the scenario, but to assess your mental condition by your behavior under unfamiliar and stressful circumstances."

Lucy absorbed this fact and struggled to process it. "Is this because I bought a hat, then?"

The Doctor sighed. "No. It was not any single decision or mistake that you made."

"Then please, Doctor," said Lucy, "explain it to me. I really can't understand."

The Doctor paused to consider. "And how does that make you feel?"

"Upset," said Lucy.

"Upset how?" said the Doctor. "Does it make you sad? Or are you afraid for your career? Your future?"

"No," said Lucy, "I'm angry, and I'm frustrated. I had a goal. I was supposed to save those hostages, but it was a total _Kobayashi Maru_. The only way to break the stalemate would have been to start killing terrorists."

"And did that ever cross your mind as a legitimate option?" said the Doctor.

"Not for a moment," said Lucy. "Even if we could have killed them all with zero collateral damage, which I highly doubt, and in spite of the fact I didn't agree with their methods _or_ their goals, it wasn't my place to pick sides in their conflict. It was a classic Prime Directive scenario."

The Doctor paused, momentarily considering her point. "An interesting perspective."

"Is that why I failed?"

The Doctor uttered a frustrated sigh. "I told you, it was nothing specific! There was no 'right' answer! Ensign…" He grasped for the right words for a moment before going on, "You can't feel pain. Your shoe melted into your foot, and you didn't even limp. And your emotional responses are completely atypical. You showed more concern for the shoe than for your foot, and you demonstrated as much sympathy for the terrorists as for the victims."

"I was mediating!" Lucy retorted, but the Doctor went on regardless.

"You approached them without even trying to work out out a contingency plan or find a weapon for self-defense. They could have shot you where you stood just to make a point!"

"They were scared!" said Lucy. "They needed someone to hear their demands, or they would have started killing hostages even sooner. Your writing made it obvious that I was the one that would be expected to step forward, so I did. I was just following the plot."

"As you saw it, perhaps," said the Doctor. "But the most serious problem had nothing to do with your choices or your emotions. Ensign, your biosynthetic implants just dropped the entire French language into your head, and you didn't skip a beat. You hardly even noticed, until I pointed it out. That degree of cognitive synergy speaks to the profound extent to which an unknown alien artificial intelligence has insinuated itself into your brain."

"What?" said Lucy. "You don't think I'm Lucy Kang anymore? What am I then, a Borg?"

"You're still you," said the Doctor, his voice much softer than before. "You're still Lucille Kang. Your capacity for empathy, your cleverness, your wit, that's all you. But you're something more, now, too. That's what frightens me."

"Well then, how long is it going to take, to prove I can be trusted again?" said Lucy.

The Doctor shook his head. "Hopefully, we won't have to deal with that. Commander Chakotay is back on that station right now, looking for a way to reverse what was done to you."

Lucy tasted something bitter. "Why didn't anyone tell me?" she said.

"You're right, I should have," said the Doctor. "I was preoccupied with setting up your assessment."

Lucy shook her head. "You're not the only person who could have let me know. The Captain, or Chakotay, or anyone on the senior staff could have told me what they intended to do. I'm just an afterthought in all this, aren't I?"

"Far from it, Ensign," said the Doctor.

"But what if the cure is just as grisly and invasive as the cause? Will they even ask my permission, or will they just order me to hop back into that pod?"

"Ensign…"

Lucy shook her head. "They didn't even give me a chance, did they? They saw I looked different, they saw I acted different, and immediately they just assumed they had to 'turn me back' somehow. I can't even imagine what that would be like, Doctor! All this trauma and misery that people keep expecting me to feel? Why would I want that?"

The Doctor looked perplexed. "You don't want to be… _you_ again, Lucy?"

"I _am_ me, Doctor! You said it yourself! I'm me, and I'm more! And your bogus test is a far cry from convincing me that that's a bad thing."

The Doctor's confusion faded, giving rise to a carefully neutral expression. "I'll be sure to pass that sentiment on to the Captain, then," he said.

"Well… good!" said Lucy. "I'm a member of this crew, dammit. I deserve to be heard."

The Doctor nodded. "Of course."

With that settled, Lucy walked out of the Doctor's office and back into sickbay. "So, what am I supposed to do now? Sit on a biobed and twiddle my thumbs?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Your security clearances are still on hold, but you're clear to visit all unrestricted areas of the ship. You'll have two security personnel with you at all times outside of your quarters, and your activities will be monitored."

Lucy opened her mouth to complain, but the Doctor cut her off.

"Those are the captain's orders. Furthermore, you're to report back to sickbay at oh-seven-hundred hours for a complete medical assessment, so I can monitor the progression of your condition. And keep me informed of any new symptoms you may experience in the meantime. Those are _my_ orders. Are we clear, Ensign?"

"Yes, Doctor," said Lucy, making every effort to stifle her resentment. As stacked as the test had seemed, she had to acknowledge that the Doctor knew what he was doing. Whether she agreed with him or not, his judgment must have had some merit, at least from a certain point of view. Continuing to belabor the point would only serve to reinforce his conclusions.

Lucy turned to the sickbay doors and walked straight through, studiously avoiding eye contact with Owen or Bobby as she passed between them. Without looking back, she knew they had followed her through the door by their soft footsteps on the carpeted deck.

Lucy pondered what to do with the rest of her day. She couldn't even enter the BNG labs without her security clearances. She found it a little absurd that she would even contemplate visiting her workplace on a day off, and yet, she yearned to do just that. _Voyager_ only had a couple other technicians that were even qualified to do her job, and they would both be pulling extra shifts for the foreseeable future to cover for her absence. Even if she couldn't take on any of the work, she would have liked to check in on them and offer some moral support. Maybe she could catch up with Raeger or Kigon in the commissary later to see if they could use any work advice or moral support, but right now they were sure to be in the middle of a shift or deep in a sleep cycle.

She wasn't hungry, so there was no reason to visit the commissary right now. She was absolutely sick of holograms, so obviously the Holodeck was out of the question. Lucy supposed she might as well just return to her quarters.

Crewman Jarvin passed Lucy in the corridor. His step faltered when he saw her, and his eyes darted over her several times.

"Something the matter, Crewman?" said Lucy.

"Nossir," said Jarvin, making the formal reply sound like a friendly greeting. Three years in the Delta Quadrant had worn away some of the polish from Starfleet code of conduct, and the Maquis crew members like Jarvin rarely stood on ceremony in the first place—especially not for the likes of Ensign Lucy Kang. "I'm glad to see you're back on your feet. Are you headed to the holodeck?"

Lucy remembered the costume she was still wearing, complete with a melted shoe. "No. Why?" she said. She met his eye, daring him to make another comment.

Jarvin's eyes darted to Bobby and Owen in uncertainty.

Lucy just straightened her posture, glared at him, and waited.

His eyes met hers again, and after another moment of uncertainty, his face broke out in a grin. "I heard there was a pool tournament at Sandrine's tonight. If you're off duty, I'd like to go with you."

Lucy couldn't help but smile at his audacity. "That's sweet, Crewman, but…" She cast a glance over her shoulder at Owen. His face was a stony mask of professional disinterest, but she swore she could see something burning in his ice-blue eyes.

She turned back to Jarvin and put on a winning smile. "I'll let you know a little later." She started walking again, and as she passed Jarvin, she reached out and brushed a bit of imaginary lint off the back of his shoulder. He looked back and met her eyes, she offered him one more small smile, and she went on her way.

Lucy went to her quarters to change. Thankfully, Owen and Bobby didn't follow her through the doors, although she knew they would be waiting for her when she emerged again; they or two others, at any rate.

She stripped away the jewelry, the scarf, the skirts, the ruined shoes, the blouse, the corset. Patches of mud and soot still clung to the skirts, though thankfully the bloodstains had vanished at the end of the simulation, along with her holographic hat. As the illusion faded back into black walls and golden grid lines, the corpse she'd been checking for a pulse dissolved under her fingertips, and across the holodeck, the bracelet she'd traded for the vanishing hat clattered to the floor.

The final death toll was eight. Out of eighty-odd hostages, eight died before Lucy managed to convince the insane terrorists that their point was made, nothing more would be gained, and she would personally hand deliver their nonsense manifesto to the President of Earth, or Napoleon, or whoever the king of France was in nineteen-whatever, if only they would stop killing people.

It worked, because the terrorists had indeed already accomplished much of what they set out to do, and because she'd managed to convince them that she was neutral to their bigoted cause, and because the program had been poorly written. If she'd been trained as a security or tactical officer, maybe she could have organized the braver holodeck characters to rise up and kill or capture the terrorists. The death toll would likely have been even higher, but at least the dead would have consisted more of the cartoonish villains, and less of the peaceful bystanders.

If she'd been a diplomatic or command-track officer, maybe she would have done a better job of negotiating. She couldn't fathom what more she could have done to convince them, and yet, she was sure that somehow, Captain Janeway would have come through that scenario without losing a single hostage. She would have found a way to trick them, or turn them against each other, or… something.

Lucy stuffed the remnants of her costume into her bedroom replicator and signaled it to dissolve the outfit back into formless energy reserves. Then she used her wallscreen to call up the file for that silly, stupid hat, and she deleted it. It wasn't really such a special thing, after all. Looking back, she'd really just chosen to fixate on it to get a little rise out of the Doctor. It had seemed like such a small thing, but now she couldn't help cursing herself for taking the whole assessment so lightly from the start. She hadn't had any doubts at all about her own competence. No wonder the Doctor hadn't passed her.

It didn't do to dwell on it, though. She'd just have to work harder to prove herself going forward.

What Lucy needed was to work up a good sweat. She went to her dresser and changed into her gym clothes, then looked around the room for her preferred off-duty sweater, only to recall that she'd left it in the deck eight gymnasium before the away mission. By now, the ship's self-cleaning system had probably tractored it into the gym's clutter repository. If she didn't find it and pull it out soon, it would wind up being reclamated, and she'd have to use precious replicator rations to recreate it.

Lucy set off straight away, deciding not to worry this time that she was only wearing her shorts and a sports bra. If it was fine in the gym, there was no reason it wouldn't be fine in the corridors.

When she stepped out through the door to her quarters, she turned to Bobby. "I'm going to the gym," she announced. She hardly spared Owen a glance.

The security officers shadowed her through the ship. They reached the turbolift, and the doors slid open, revealing, of all people, Ensign Vorik.

Lucy stepped into the turbolift, flashing a smile at Vorik that he did not return. Her guards crowded into the turbolift behind her.

"Deck eight," said Lucy. As the turbolift whisked into motion, she looked over at Vorik. "You're not heading to a briefing with the senior staff by any chance, are you?" she asked him.

"I am on my way to engineering," responded Vorik.

Lucy nodded. "Good. I wouldn't want to show up in front of Chakotay in my underwear again."

"Commander Chakotay is not currently on board," said Vorik.

Lucy rolled her eyes, then turned and faced him directly. Just then, though, the turbolift came to a halt, and the doors opened on deck eight. "Remind me to gripe at you the next time I see you, Vorik," she said.

The Vulcan just arched an eyebrow. Lucy stepped out of the turbolift, escorts in tow, and made her way down the corridor to the gymnasium.

The gym was empty, as expected at 1700 during a Yellow Alert. Almost no one would be away from their post this long after shift change.

Lucy found her sweater in the clutter repository with a couple empty water bottles and someone's misplaced PADD. The shirt was a little rumpled, but none the worse for the wear. She handed it to Bobby and asked him to hang onto it for her, then she found her usual fifteen-kilo dumbells, walked over to the variable-g exercise zone, and took a few experimental lunges.

She found it didn't require her usual level of exertion. "Computer, what is the gravity setting of the variable-g exercise zone?"

"Gravity is set to one g," said the computer.

"Increase fifteen percent," said Lucy.

She took a few more lunges and marveled at how little effort it still required. "Computer, increase the gravity an additional fifteen percent."

Her next lunges required a little more effort, but for the first time, she felt confident that she could go beyond this setting— _well_ beyond. "Computer, increase gravity to three g's." That was the maximum allowable g-force for Human users.

Immediately, Lucy was seized by the illusion that she was being aggressively shoved upwards, as if she were on a turbolift with malfunctioning inertial dampeners. The weights became leaden in her hands, and she was forced to tighten her grip.

Lucy took a few deep breaths, then attempted a few more lunges. It was a challenge. Her joints complained, and her muscles strained. It wasn't exactly what she would have called painful, but Lucy knew that that didn't mean it wasn't causing her harm. She glanced at Owen, standing with Bobby at the entrance to the gymnasium, staring at her through a furrowed brow, and decided not to let that fact stop her. She would quit if she heard something pop. Lucy finished a full set of lunges before gratefully relinquishing the triple-weighted dumbbells.

Then, rather than leaving the variable-g zone or turning down the gravity, Lucy decided to press ahead with a full set of crunches, and then pushups, and then pull-ups. She found that, even though she was exercising near her limits, she wasn't tiring out as quickly as she'd expected.

When she was done, Lucy was drenched in sweat. She dialed the gravity back down to normal, and suddenly she felt as light as a feather. She laughed at the sudden lightness and jumped in place a couple times, landing lightly on her toes.

Lucy ordered a bottle of electrolyte-infused water from the gymnasium replicator, drank deeply, and then went to the treadmill.

She started at her typical long-distance running speed, but of course, it wasn't offering her much of a challenge. So, she dialed up the treadmill bit by bit, until she hit the maximum allowable setting for Human users. Running at a flat-out sprint now, Lucy felt her breaths coming deeply and evenly, the muscles in her legs and feet not even struggling to keep up. She couldn't override the treadmill settings without security clearances, but she was tempted to reprogram the equipment to read her as some other species, perhaps Kelpien or Edosian, just to see how far she could push herself.

It wouldn't look good for her if she tripped and fell on her face in the gymnasium, though, and Owen and Bobby might step in if they thought she was being unsafe, so she decided just to see how long she could carry on at the current pace.

About half an hour later, just as the treadmill's odometer was approaching twenty-five kilometers, Lucy landed on her right foot a little off balance and nearly rolled her ankle. She stumbled but stayed on her feet, not breaking stride long enough for the treadmill's safeties to kick in, but she decided she'd had enough for the moment. She could have sprained her ankle, and she wouldn't have a clue. She stopped the treadmill, walked to the replicator to refill her water bottle, drank half a liter, and refilled it again. Then she headed to a chair on the edge of the room, sat down, and picked her ankle up into her lap to give it a once-over.

"Are you ok?"

Lucy looked up and found Owen standing in front of her, looking at her in evident concern.

Lucy forced a polite smile. "Fine."

He sat down next to her and took her bare foot gently in his warm hands. "Are you sure?" he asked. "What if you just can't feel the injury?"

"That's why I got off the treadmill to take a look," said Lucy. "But it's fine, see?"

He probed her ankle carefully with his fingers for a moment. Lucy's breathing was still coming in deep, rapid breaths, just short of panting, and the endorphins from her workout were interacting with Owen's tender ministrations to a curious effect. She studied the muscular contours of his shoulders and neck and the stalwart profile of his face as he examined her foot.

"We should return to sickbay, just to make sure—" the words died in his throat when his blue eyes met with the intensity of her gaze.

Lucy just slowly shook her head.

Owen swallowed. He looked like he was about to say something else, but then Lucy reached out on impulse, brushing the stubble on his cheek with her fingertips.

Across the gym, Bobby cleared his throat.

Lucy pulled her hand back, and Owen jumped to his feet.

Lucy stood up as well.

Owen started to speak, stopped, cleared his throat, and tried again. "Let's just stop by sickbay," he said.

"That's really not necessary," said Lucy. She was quickly recovering her breath, now. "My ankle's fine. See?" She picked up her left foot, balancing her weight on the right, and hopped up and down a couple times. The demonstration didn't tax her balance in the slightest.

Owen still looked uncertain.

"The Doctor will just consider it more evidence that I'm not fit for duty. Please, Owen, if you're not going to back me up, at least don't sabotage me."

Owen was taken aback. "I said I've got your back," he said. "I meant it."

"Well then why didn't you say anything when the Doctor was relieving me of duty?"

Owen shook his head. "If you couldn't change his mind, there's no way I can. You know how stubborn the Doctor can be. I'll talk to Lieutenant Tuvok when he gets back from the mission, though."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "He's got to be _twice_ as stubborn."

"Yeah, but he values my input. If I tell him you aren't a security risk…"

"He'll tell you your human emotions are getting in the way of your logic."

Owen nodded. "Something like that, I'm sure. But he'll at least take it into account. It isn't much, but it's the best I can do, Lucy."

"That, and not tattling to the Doctor because I stumbled slightly?" said Lucy.

Owen cast an uncertain glance at Bobby, who just shook his head mutely.

"Fine," said Owen. "But no more reckless use of the exercise equipment. You know all your activities are being monitored. Everything you just did in here is going to turn up in a report."

Lucy stood up straight. "Well, good," she said. "Let them see that there are some really remarkable advantages to my condition. I'm tired of everyone singling out my faults and dismissing my superior abilities."

Owen still looked painfully unsure. "Ok, Lucy. Just… don't start acting like the next Kahn Singh, please?"

Lucy was stunned. "Excuse me?" Did he really just compare her to one of the worst despots in human history?

Owen rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean it like that, just…"

"Like what, then?" said Lucy. "Is that how I seem, Owen? You think I'm a monster?"

"No!" said Owen. "I'm just concerned for you."

Lucy stormed out of the gymnasium, snatching her sweater out of Bobby's hands on her way out the door. She pulled on the sweater while she marched down the corridor, making her escorts jog to keep up.

"Wait, Lucy, hang on a sec!" said Owen.

"Who said you could talk to me like that? Aren't you still on duty, Chief?" Lucy said over her shoulder.

Owen sighed in exasperation. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Denied!" said Lucy.

She reached the turbolift and called for deck four, half hoping the doors would close before the security officers could make it inside. Of course, the turbolift waited for them.

They traveled the rest of the way to Lucy's quarters in uncomfortable silence. When they reached her door, she turned to Owen and said, "Try not to be the next Adolf Hitler, ok, Chief Vance?"

Owen winced, and Lucy walked into her room, locking the door behind her.

She let out an angry huff, and then she hit a button on the panel by her door.

"—was I thinking? Why did I say that to her?" Owen's voice filtered through her door's comm panel.

"Hey, we were both thinking it," said Bobby.

"But it's not what I meant! It just came out that way."

"Come on, she sounded like an augment," said Bobby. "Oh, I'm better than all the normal humans! Why don't they recognize my superiority!"

"Yeah, but Lucy's not like that," said Owen. "I think she just… she's not herself, right now. She doesn't realize how her words come across."

Lucy was tempted to shout back through the door comm, but she just clicked it off, instead.

They couldn't know what she was going through. The only people on this whole ship who ever appreciated her for her abilities were Raeger and Kigon, and they were in the same boat as she was—consigned to laboratories in the lower decks, performing grinding and completely thankless work, possibly for the rest of their lives. The fact that she graduated in the top tenth percentile of her class, that she had a spotless service record, and that she never uttered one single gripe about her shitty lot in life to another soul had never garnered her an iota of recognition.

Because she was meek. She didn't complain, and she didn't push. She thought her record would speak for itself, and that one day she'd have a chance to prove her worth to the captain of this ship.

Well, she'd had her chance, and she'd screwed it up royally. She'd allowed that infernal alien pod to catch her, and now, she was… weird. All anyone could see in her anymore was the horror of what had happened to her. They couldn't even see her as a human being anymore.

Would it kill them to give her a chance? She didn't expect to lose the security escort any time soon, but they didn't have to keep her from doing her job. And if they were going to fuss endlessly over the way her emotional responses had changed, they could at least balance their perspective by acknowledging everything she'd gained in return.

The sad fact was, no matter what Lucy said or did, she was going to be viewed with suspicion from now on. Which meant her newfound strength and stamina weren't assets, they were threats. They wouldn't earn her positions on away missions; they would only hold her back from being a part of the crew.

Lucy needed to take a shower and clean away the sweat that was drying on her skin, but now she was too worked up to focus on that. A gnawing, hungry pit had opened in her stomach since her workout, but she was too high strung to order something from the replicator to fill it, either. She paced around the claustrophobic confines of her junior officer's quarters, wringing her hands.

She didn't want the anger, but she couldn't let it go. She knew the Captain was acting in the best interests of the crew. She knew it would be stupid, from the Captain's perspective, to trust her completely. If she could only divorce herself from her own experiences, she could see her way to understanding almost every decision that was made towards her in the last twenty-four hours.

What she couldn't understand was how the senior staff could go back onto that space station, risking their lives trying to find a cure to her condition, without even taking the time to understand what her condition _was_ , and without even keeping her informed of the choices they were making on her behalf. Did they think she was _completely_ incompetent? That she no longer had the capacity to make her own informed medical decisions?

She had to remind herself that they were afraid. She remembered what it was like, that knee-jerk fear of cyborgs and genetic augments. It felt silly now, but humanity had a long and fraught history with both.

And aside from those old taboos, how many times, in just the last three years, had _Voyager_ personnel been hijacked by alien powers and made to do things against their will? How could anyone see Lucy's situation as anything but a continuation of that pattern?

After a few more minutes of pacing and rationalizing, Lucy finally settled herself down enough to take a long, cleansing sonic shower. After a minute of just basking in the warm jets of air and antiseptic rays, letting the sonic vibrations soothe her nerves, Lucy began a thorough investigation of the changes in her body.

It was still quite strange, looking down at herself and seeing someone she barely recognized. Her skin looked and felt almost preternaturally healthy, uniformly firm and evenly toned. Her figure, which once could have been described mostly in straight lines, now was defined by graceful curves and aesthetically perfect proportions, like something Alexandros of Antioch would have carved out of marble.

Above all the rest, though, the thing that struck Lucy most of all was her hands.

They were the same size, the same shape and proportions, and her slender fingers still tapered the same way they always had, but they weren't the same hands she'd known all her life anymore. They responded to the minute impulses of her mind with preternatural precision and grace. They did not waver or tremble in the slightest degree when she chose to hold them still. It felt perfectly ordinary when she didn't think about it, but staring at them now, Lucy felt the reality of her biosynthetic augmentation to a deeper degree than ever before.

More than the way they moved, though, Lucy's hands were strangers to her. They no longer carried the calluses that were borne from crawling through the ship's Jefferies tubes nearly every day of the last three years, hunting down misbehaving BNG packs in the recesses of the ship and fiddling with the fine connecting fibers that joined the BNG packs into the ship's ODN relays.

The skin of her hands no longer had the natural roughness that lingered from her occasional holodeck free climbing expeditions. Her nails no longer bore the frayed edges where she would gnaw at them in times of stress. Even the lines that etched her palms were fewer and finer.

Lucy recalled that the Roma carnival had hosted a fortune telling tent with a sign advertising palm readings. She hadn't paid the booth a visit during her assessment, but now Lucy wondered what the palm reader would have made of her hands. Would she have told Lucy that her destiny had been as heavily altered as her hands were? Would the loss of finer creases signify vanishing possibilities for her future?

Lucy shrugged off the fanciful notion and gave up on contemplating the depths of her transformation for the moment. She picked up her hairbrush, combing through her silky black tresses, allowing the magic of the sonic shower to purge each and every strand of sweat, grease, and grime.

When she was finished, Lucy slipped on her silk robe and ordered a bowl of fish soup, a side of rice noodles in black bean sauce, and a bottle of synth-soju from the replicator. She tucked the meal away in short order and was tempted to order seconds, but she decided she couldn't spare the replicator credits. Instead, she climbed into bed and settled in for a nap.

Lucy had strange dreams.

She was back in the holodeck recreation of a Roma carnival. It was late at night, and the sky boasted a clear view of the Nekrit Expanse, its deep purple, nebular cloud banks dotted with a few red giants, like the last, dying embers of an extinguished campfire. The wormhole was rising over the horizon in the East like an oblong moon.

Lucy had come back here because she'd realized she'd left the test unfinished. There was still one more terrorist in the carnival, hiding among the throngs of people, and she had to find them before they carried out their misguided plot.

Pretty quickly as Lucy moved through the crowd, she noticed that the people around her were arrayed in the exact same configuration as the bioneural gel packs that populated _Voyager_ ; a fact that she chalked up to the Doctor's lazy writing.

It was a good bit of information to have, though; something Lucy could exploit. If one of these people was a terrorist, then Lucy could track them down the same way she hunted down malfunctioning BNG packs around the ship.

Lucy grabbed the person nearest her. She recognized the mother of that little girl Ginger. Collette was her name. "You," said Lucy, "What are you up to right now?"

Collette didn't answer her; she just looked Lucy in the eye, her expression flickering between anger and remorse. Lucy studied her eyes until she could get an impression of Collette's thoughts.

Collette was thinking about balancing the port thrusters against the feedback from starboard inertial dampeners to maintain a stable position relative to an external reference point. Lucy was able to glean from the direction her thoughts were moving that Collette was receiving information from the hat saleswoman near the portside entrance of the fair, and from the "Oriental" merchant at the far starboard side. Furthermore, she was directing her conclusions to a few different people around the fair, including towards Ginger, who was still running circuits around the bonfire in the middle of the fairground's secondary hull.

Lucy decided to find Ginger next, but she knew she couldn't go walking out in the open, or the terrorist might spot her. So, Lucy found an access hatch behind the fabrics stall and climbed down into the fairground's system of Jefferies tubes. When she reached the bonfire, she climbed back out into the open night sky and spotted Ginger, still running in loops around the fire.

Lucy wondered what must be going through the little girl's head to stray so dangerously close to an exposed matter-antimatter reaction, so she caught her by the hand and spun the little girl to face her. Lucy studied the girl's grubby, tearful face until she could get a sense of her thoughts.

Ginger was working hard on shunting electroplasma from the reactor core without destabilizing the intermix ratio, and distributing that raw power to the auxiliary and operations power grids. She was receiving information from dozens of other carnival goers and sending information out to just as many others, as were her brother and sister, both of whom were still racing around the bonfire.

Good. Lucy had reached one of the central BNG network nodes for power distribution. Just about every other fairgoer fed data into this node, whether directly or indirectly. Now, all she had to do was monitor Ginger's inputs for any irregularities.

Ginger looked annoyed. At first, Lucy thought she was annoyed because Lucy was keeping her from her game, but after a moment she realized the thing bugging Ginger was a lag in pings coming from the vendor at the pretzel stand. Could he be the terrorist?

Lucy let go of Ginger, and for a frightful moment, she feared the little girl would plunge straight into the bonfire again, but that didn't happen. The little girl joined her siblings in their orderly circuits of the central power core of the festival.

Across the fairgrounds, near the forward bow, Lucy could just make out the sign for the pretzel stand. She ducked back into the Jefferies tubes and made her way all the way to the fore, popping out behind the counter of the pretzel stand next to the vendor.

Before he could make a move, Lucy grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.

There were drops of sweat beading along the vendor's hairline, and he was visibly trembling. Something had him scared. Was he really the terrorist? Lucy studied his mannerisms until she could sense his thinking. He was trying to manage inputs from all the major auxiliary vendors in the upper decks of the carnival. The problem was that the signal-to-noise ratio bleeding over from the fortune teller's booth was way out of whack. He was still able to interpret the input with a little extra work, but if things went on like this, the fortune teller would stop functioning in such a way that her malfunction would pass its way up to the pretzel vendor, and from there it could very well cascade across the carnival, knocking out a sizable portion of the auxiliary fairgoers in the process.

The fortune teller was the terrorist; Lucy was sure, now. She would have to talk some sense into her; killing or capturing her was out of the question. A fortune teller was an important function for a Roma carnival, after all, and out here in the Delta Quadrant, they couldn't exactly recruit a new fortune teller at the nearest starbase.

Lucy snuck over into the fortune teller's booth and grabbed hold of the old crone before she knew what was happening.

The old woman's face was contorted in rage, her hands balled into fists. It only took a moment of study for Lucy to realize what had her so upset. All of the fortune teller's misplaced rage was the result of a simple sodium imbalance, resulting from a software failure in one of her homeostatic sensors. Lucy was able to force the fortune teller's sensor to reboot. For a moment, the woman's thinking was jumbled, unfocused. Then she smiled, and Lucy smiled back as she sensed the elderly woman's thoughts returning to order, back to managing replicator and environmental functions for the forward sections of decks one through four of the carnival.

Lucy had succeeded. She was immensely relieved.

The dream faded away, and then Lucy found herself on the alien space station. Her mission was to find and analyze the station's bioneural gel packs. She was excited to realize that her success on the holodeck had convinced the Doctor to approve her for active duty again, and she was determined not to make a mistake like last time. She would find every BNG on the station herself and make sure each one operated at peak efficiency,.That way, they could use the station to open a wormhole to the Alpha Quadrant.

Pretty quickly, Lucy realized that the station's alien bioneural technology mirrored _Voyager_ 's much more closely than anyone guessed. In fact, they were configured in an identical grid to _Voyager_ 's, making her mission significantly easier. Essentially, it turned what should have been a dangerous mission full of unknown variables into a normal day at work.

Lucy woke in the middle of what was shaping up to be a very boring dream, to the sound of her door chime. She rubbed at her eyes with her knuckles.

"Computer, what time is it?" she called. Her voice was a little froggy. She cleared her throat and pushed herself upright, swinging her legs out of bed.

"The time is twenty-three twenty-one hours," said the computer.

"Who's at my door?" she asked.

"Chief Petty Officer Owen Vance," responded the computer.

Lucy sighed. She wasn't ready to face her security escort again. "What do they want now?"

She stood and started getting dressed, deciding to put on her duty uniform even if she wasn't on duty, just to remind people that she was still a part of the crew.

The chime sounded again as she stepped into her pants.

"Just a moment!" she called, and she pulled up her pants, only to have them catch around her hips.

" _Zut,"_ Lucy groaned. This was the first time she'd tried to don something tailored to her old measurements; something that wasn't designed through the magic of modern textile technologies to conform to any body type. She was half-tempted to replicate a new uniform while her security escort waited outside, but the process would take a few minutes, and for all she knew, something urgent might have come up. Why else would they be bugging her at this hour?

Lucy decided to put on some stretchable black leggings and a thigh-length, waist-belted, off-the-shoulder, charcoal-gray tunic instead. When she was dressed, she clicked on her holomirror and studied herself front and back. She was grateful for once that her makeup had already taken care of itself, so to speak, evidently responding to her subconscious whims to achieve a subtly dewy, I-just-woke-up-this-perfect look that she'd never quite been able to achieve with conventional cosmetics.

The door chime signaled yet again. Lucy raked her fingers through her hair a few times, relieved that her nap hadn't left her with noticeable bed-head, and called, "Enter!"

The door opened, and in strode Owen Vance, wearing a yellow-gold sweater reminiscent of Starfleet duty uniforms from a hundred years ago. The fact he wore his combadge in its usual place over his left breast only contributed to the impression.

It wasn't an actual Starfleet uniform, though, which meant Owen was off duty.

"What do you want?" said Lucy.

He stopped just inside the entrance, and the door closed behind him. Lucy wished she hadn't blindly let him in.

Owen took a deep breath, looked Lucy up and down, and then looked down at his feet, as if he'd suddenly lost the nerve to speak.

"I said, what do you want?" said Lucy.

"You look nice," said Owen, forcing himself to meet Lucy's gaze.

She regarded him cooly for a moment, then said, "Get out."

"Wait, I…" Owen sighed. "Sorry. I came here to say… I'm sorry."

Lucy shook her head. "Why bother apologizing? I'm not even myself right now, right?"

"What?" said Owen, obviously confused.

"Well, you said it," said Lucy. She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not myself. I don't even know what I'm saying. So why should you take anything I say, think, or feel seriously, hm?"

"So you were eavesdropping?" asked Owen.

Lucy nodded. "Yup."

"Well, then you must have heard what I said next, right?"

Lucy shook her head. "I could only stomach a few seconds of listening to you talk about what you knew nothing about."

Owen sighed. "I said there's no way we could understand what you were going through. I said we needed to trust and support you while you figured things out, and how I hated that you felt like no one was on your side."

Now it was Lucy's turn to look at her feet. It occurred to her that neither her coworkers from the BNG labs nor her friends from other departments had been by to visit her since the incident. Only Owen and Kes, and Kes worked in sickbay, so she couldn't have avoided Lucy even if she'd wanted to.

A few people had checked in with her over the ship's comms while she was in sickbay, and everyone was busy while the ship was at Yellow Alert, and she was sure some people were just afraid to see her, unsure of what to say or how to act. She tried not to take it personally, but until this moment, Lucy hadn't realized how lonely she'd felt.

It was hard to know how she felt when the emotions that typically accompanied those feelings were nowhere to be found. How could she be lonely without being sad? Even now, with tears suddenly threatening to spring up in her eyes, Lucy couldn't honestly claim to be _sad_. She couldn't say exactly what the feeling was that was threatening to make her cry.

She clamped down on those tears, unwilling to cry in front of someone she was still so angry at.

"You compared me to Kahn Singh," said Lucy, making herself meet his gaze again.

Owen cringed. "I didn't mean to," he said. "The words came out all wrong. I…"

Owen stepped closer, reached for Lucy's hand. She stepped back, keeping him outside of arm's reach.

"I don't want you to feel isolated," said Owen. "I want people to see you the way that I do. Right now, though… everyone's scared."

"Scared of _me_ ," said Lucy.

Owen shook his head. "Scared of losing you."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere! If they're scared at all, it's because they think I might be some kind of a monster!"

"You know it's not that simple, Luce. When Kes was possessed by that… warlord ghost, or whatever we decided on calling it, how long did it take everyone to catch on? How quickly did _you_ catch on?"

Lucy winced at the memory.

"No one wants to make the same mistake twice," said Owen.

"I get your point," said Lucy. "Honestly, I can't even blame them. But _you_ …" She stepped forward and jabbed an accusing finger at his chest, but then she came up short.

Why did Owen's feelings matter more than the others'? Why would she expect anything different from him? They'd just hooked up a couple times; it wasn't like they were _in_ _love_ …

Owen just stood there, looking forlorn. Lucy cocked her head to the side and stepped closer, wanting a clearer look at him.

"Why do you keep coming around me?" she demanded.

His look of agony increased. "Lucy…"

"Why do you keep visiting me? Why were we both on that away mission? Why were you on my security detail? Was that a coincidence?"

Owen shook his head. A tear beaded up in his right eye, but he made no move to clear it. "No. It wasn't a coincidence. I volunteered for both. I lobbied…" He sniffed, and suddenly, tears were running down his cheeks. "...Lieutenant Tuvok to put me on the away mission. Because I heard you were going, and I wanted…" His face spasmed briefly, and he wiped his hand over his face to clear the tears. His voice dropped off as he finished, "...to keep you safe."

Lucy examined him closely for a long moment; the redness rimming his eyes, the line of his tightly-pressed lips, the misery etched in his features, and the slight tremble in his hands, which he kept pinned to his sides, as if he were afraid of what they might do if he let them loose. It occurred to her that she'd badly misread Owen Vance before now.

"I'm so sorry, Luce, I couldn't save you. I was useless, I…"

Lucy stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his middle, resting her head against his broad chest. He was warm, and his sweater was soft, and her arms seemed to fit perfectly around him.

A moment later, Owen folded his arms around her, encircling her in a protective embrace. He bowed his head, resting his cheek lightly on the crown of her head, and they stood like that until Lucy felt his trembling hands on her back relax and become still. The rise and fall of his breathing became deep and regular. Lucy took a deep breath, laced with musk and aftershave, and it warmed her up inside.

Lucy loosened her grip, allowing a few centimeters to open up between them, and looked up at Owen. He seemed so calm now, his piercing blue eyes gazing back at her under heavy lids. Her gaze flickered down to his firm, full lips, and back to his eyes, and then he leaned in and locked those lips over hers.

It wasn't their first kiss. In fact, in spite of all of the changes Lucy had been through, Owen's kiss felt entirely familiar. His firm mouth fit against her soft, cupid's bow lips just the same as before. His prominent nose brushed the curve of her cheek in the same way. Her smaller, flatter nose was tickled by the stubble on his cheek in the same way. As much as she'd been feeling like a stranger in her own skin, it was a comforting reminder that, cosmetic differences notwithstanding, her face was mostly unchanged.

Their kiss slowly built in urgency, and Lucy's hands began roaming over the familiar lines and angles of his body as his hands began exploring her unfamiliar curves.

His fingers sought out a ticklish spot on the small of Lucy's back, and she squirmed against him. That made her laugh, breaking their kiss. He was grinning like a fool, perhaps pleased to see that her body still responded the same way as before. She took the hem of his sweater and pulled it up, over his head, baring his chest. He pulled at the belt that cinched her tunic around her waist, loosening it enough to pull the top up, over her head, and they came together again, skin on sweat-damp skin, lips on hungry lips, tongues dancing together. Then, kicking off their shoes and tugging clumsily at their pants and leggings, they stumbled their way blindly over to Lucy's unmade bed, and they fell in together.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

"I say we fly _Voyager_ in there and ram a few photon torpedoes up their aft ventral porthole! See how they like that!" Lieutenant Torres raged.

The senior staff was gathered in the conference room, minus Chakotay, who was still being held captive on the space station. They hadn't been sitting at the conference table more than a couple minutes before Torres was back on her feet, though, pacing back and forth down the length of the table.

Janeway regarded the hot-headed engineer patiently, deciding it would be better just to let Torres vent her frustrations and get it out of the way. After all, she was just giving voice to the frustration that pervaded the whole room. They were angry, and they were worried for Chakotay, and everyone needed to acknowledge it—everyone but Tuvok, of course.

"The Delurididug Trade Hub holds significant strategic advantages over _Voyager_ ," he Vulcan-splained. "It exists within an isolated region of space, over which it appears to control both ingress and egress. It has far more advanced technology than _Voyager_ , it generates far more power than _Voyager_ , and its immense bulk likely hides defensive systems significantly more formidable than _Voyager_ 's. Such a confrontation is unlikely to end in our favor."

Torres waved off his objection. "We don't even know if the station is armed. We scanned every inch of it, and _I_ didn't see an operational weapons system."

"Indeed," said Tuvok, "We have been able to discern very little about key functions on the station. We cannot identify a computer core, a power source, or any form of warp field generator. And yet, we have ample evidence that the station has each of these systems. Therefore, the station is either employing technology so foreign and advanced that we cannot recognize it, or it is somehow disguising these systems from our scans. The same could go for weapons."

B'elanna shook her head. "It's unmanned. Whatever advanced technology may or may not be on board is useless if no one is there to operate it."

Tuvok arched an eyebrow. "Is it your contention that the A.I. of the station is incapable of autonomous self-defense?"

B'elanna looked uncertain for a moment. Then she threw her hands up and plopped herself back into her chair. "Oh, how the hell should I know?" she said.

Tuvok nodded. "Well put, Lieutenant," he said. "We do not know enough at this time to justify putting _Voyager_ at risk."

"So what, then?" said Torres, "Do we _abandon_ Commander Chakotay? Or do we play along? Throw ourselves on the mercy of a long-defunct court and the judgment of a malfunctioning hologram?"

"Whether or not we take that course should depend on the laws of the court in question. I am still in the process of familiarizing myself with the Delurididug legal code. It is a curious system of governance; a technocratic meritocracy, its laws rigid, yet robust; idiosyncratic, yet imminently logical. Once we have an adequate understanding of their laws, we may be able to formulate an effective defense for Commander Chakotay."

"And what if we can't?" said Harry. "What if we don't have a case? Then what do we do?"

"Maybe we can plan a jailbreak," said Tom.

"I would calculate our odds of securing Commander Chakotay's escape as less than one point five percent, given their ability to neutralize our weapons inside of the station," said Tuvok.

"And even if we manage to pull it off, we can forget about getting a wormhole to the Federation," said Harry, "Or curing Ensign Kang."

"I'm afraid there are other hurdles where Ensign Kang is concerned," said the Doctor.

The others turned to the wall monitor that displayed the Doctor's image.

"What's the status of your patient, Doctor?" said Captain Janeway.

The Doctor took a moment to consider his response. "Well, physically, her condition is downright superhuman. I've been monitoring her vitals and activities remotely since she left sickbay. She spent an hour in the deck eight gymnasium, during which time she performed a complete calisthenics routine at three times standard gravity, ran twenty-five kilometers, and burned over four thousand calories. Her pulse never exceeded one hundred twenty beats a minute, and as far as I can tell from remote sensors, there was none of the lactic acid buildup in her tissues that such a strenuous workout should have produced. Afterward, she ordered an eighteen hundred calorie meal from her personal replicator, and at last check, she appeared to be sleeping. I'll be able to tell you more about her physical condition in the morning, after her next physical.

"Psychologically… The results of my assessment were deeply ambiguous. Her problem-solving abilities are excellent, but prior testing suggests this is a pre-existing trait. Her regard for life and her empathic instincts are very strong, but by the same token, her capacity for emotional detachment is lacking. Again, this matches the results of her prior psychological assessments. In these regards, her personality is essentially intact.

"One item of concern is her lack of cautious reflexes. If she saw a snake by her foot, for instance, she would not jump away from it on instinct. She would register the snake, decide consciously if it were a threat, and reason out an appropriate reaction. By the time she decided what to do, the snake might have already bitten her ankle. Her power of reasoning is excellent, but in emotionally fraught and emergent situations, I'm afraid this cognitive deficit will present a powerful liability.

"Of even greater concern are the cognitive _enhancements_ that she has begun demonstrating. During the assessment, I chose to deprive the ensign of her universal translator. Seeing as many of the characters in the program spoke only 20th Century French, I thought this would provide an additional challenge. Instead, the ensign learned a new language, fluently, in a matter of minutes—just by being in the presence of people speaking it. The implants are certainly interacting with her brain, providing cognitive enhancements in specialized tasks like language acquisition. As to any other ways they may be affecting her cognition, I can't yet say.

"But what concerns me most of all is that the ensign is starting to show a strong reticence towards the notion of reversing her condition."

There was a beat of quiet around the conference table as the staff absorbed the Doctor's meaning. Evidently, none of the others had considered that Ensign Kang might not _want_ to be cured.

"Well, I guess I can't really blame her," said Tom.

The others all looked at Tom, and he sat forward in his chair.

"Hey, she's got superpowers," he said. "She's faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound."

Tuvok's eyebrow crawled about halfway up his scalp.

"Figuratively, I mean," said Tom. "And she's unrestrained by negative emotions. That sounds like it would be hard to give up."

"Actually," said the Doctor, "She has quite a few negative emotions. Unfortunately, without the ability to express sorrow about her circumstances, her emotional release seems to come primarily in the form of anger. She's resentful, Captain. She feels she should have been consulted before Commander Chakotay led a risky away mission on her behalf. She resents being treated with suspicion and kept from resuming her post. So far, her reason and her sense of empathy seem to be working to defuse her anger, but I'm not convinced it will last."

Janeway nodded to the Doctor. "Well, for what it's worth, I think she has a point," she said. Then she addressed the room.

"Torres, Kim, get to work analyzing all the data we have on the structure of the station. We need to learn as much as we can about its external hardpoints and its internal structure. Paris, get with Lieutenant Ayala and start on that jailbreak scenario.

"Tuvok, I'll need you sorting out their laws and devising our case. Gather all the help you need, from any department.

"If we can beat their legal system, we will. If we can't, we go with a jailbreak. And in case that fails, Torres, Kim… once we know everything we possibly can about that station, start working on a way to cripple it. Once we have the upper hand, maybe the station will listen to reason. But that's our last resort.

"Does anyone have questions?"

"What about Ensign Kang, sir?" said the Doctor.

Janeway rested her chin on her hand a moment, her gaze far away, as she considered the problem. "That _is_ the question, isn't it?" Finally, she braced her hands against the table and pushed herself up to her feet. "I think it's time I paid her a visit. Now, let's get to work, people. You're dismissed."

* * *

Lucy writhed languidly against the silky fabric of her bedsheets, reveling in the afterglow. Owen rested his head on his hands and stared up at the deckhead, an easy, almost sedated smile on his face. She rolled over to face him, propping herself up on her elbow.

He cast a sidelong glance her way, and she quirked a questioning eyebrow. He reached out and ran his hand through her hair just above her left ear, gently massaging her scalp with his fingertips.

"Are you petting me like a dog right now?" said Lucy, although she made no move to stop him. His touch sent happy shivers through her whole body.

"Just making sure you're not secretly a Deltan," said Owen.

Lucy gave a breathy chuckle. "Why, because you're afraid my lovemaking has left you incurably insane? Or is it because my hair looks like a wig?" Deltans had a near-human aspect, minus cranial hair. They were also legendary love-makers, with passions so intense they could literally drive a human mad. Or that was the legend, at any rate. Lucy doubted it could be entirely accurate.

"Definitely the first one," he said.

Lucy nearly made a pithy retort about how with her enhancements, anything was possible, but she held back—in part, because she was sick of bringing up the subject, and in part, because she realized it was true.

"Do you think this might have been a mistake?" she said.

Owen's expression sobered. His hand slid from her hair to her cheek, cupping her jawline with his palm. He shook his head. "No."

Lucy sighed. She couldn't help nuzzling into his hand a little bit, but she couldn't ignore the implications of what they'd just done. She leaned back, breaking contact.

"What if I'm contagious, somehow?" she asked.

"The Doctor wouldn't have let you out of sickbay," he said.

Lucy shrugged. "What does he know? I'm infected with technology centuries ahead of ours. The Doctor can only _guess_ what all it can do."

Owen considered for a moment. "Well then, at least you won't be going through it alone anymore."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Come on, that wouldn't make me feel any better. I'd just feel guilty for dragging you down with me."

"Dragging me _up_ , you mean? Your thing comes with enhancements, remember?"

"Whatever, you know what I mean."

"Well, either way, you'd have no reason to feel guilty. _I_ seduced _you_ , remember?"

Lucy laughed. "Is that what you call insulting me, and then begging for forgiveness?"

Owen put on a roguish smile. "That's my trademark Vance charm."

He was so cute when he showed unearned confidence. Lucy leaned closer to him.

"Oh, that's what it is?" said Lucy. She brought her face within a couple centimeters of his. She could feel his breath on her cheek.

"Uh huh," he said.

"Yeah?" she said, and she kissed him. He returned her kiss readily, and things progressed quickly from there. Soon, the world seemed to fade away around them, until nothing was left but those points where their two bodies met; hands exploring sensitive flesh, legs brushing legs, interlocking lips, conjoined hips, and nothing in between them but friction and perspiration.

Afterward, Lucy and Owen both stared up at the deckhead. Lucy felt as blissful and sensuous as ever, but Owen was starting to doze off, his eyelids slowly drifting shut.

Then, that same nagging doubt popped back into her mind. "Do you think the Doctor will be mad?" she said.

Owen opened his eyes again and looked at her. "Are you going to tell him?"

"I have another check-up first thing in the morning," said Lucy. "I'm sure he'll figure it out."

Owen's brow furrowed. "Well, he never told you _not_ to have sex, did he?"

"No," said Lucy. "But now it seems like kind of a no-brainer, right?"

Owen shrugged. "Well, what's done is done. I'll report to sickbay with you and get checked over, just to be safe, ok?"

Lucy tried to imagine the Doctor's reaction when they confessed what they'd done. She smiled. "He'll definitely be mad. You sure you want to be there when he finds out?"

"Well, I wouldn't want you to bear the brunt of it."

Lucy shook her head. "I'm not afraid of that."

"Of course not," said Owen. "You're not afraid of _anything_."

There was a quiet beat. Lucy realized she was getting pretty hungry.

"You wanna get some—"

"Sorry."

They'd spoken at the same time.

"For what?" said Lucy.

"I mean…" said Owen, and he studied her face for a second. Lucy stared back, mildly confused. What had he done _this_ time?

"Nothing," said Owen. "Nevermind."

Lucy nodded, deciding that if Owen had stuck his foot in his mouth again and she'd missed it, then it was really for the best.

"You wanna get some kimbap?" said Lucy.

"What's that?" said Owen.

"It's like sushi,"

"Oh." His brow furrowed for a moment. "What's sushi, again?"

"What, seriously?"

Owen just shook his head and stared blankly.

"You really don't know what sushi is?"

Owen shrugged. "I'm from Cestus III, remember? It must be something we don't have."

"You've been to Earth before, though."

"Well, sure… I mean, on layovers, shore leaves, that sort of thing. Never a long stay."

"What about the Academy?"

He gave her a look, and Lucy realized her obvious error.

"While you were sitting in class at the Academy, I was out patrolling the DMZ, trading phaser fire with pirates and playing cat-and-mouse with our Maquis friends out there."

"Right, of course," said Lucy, feeling foolish.

"And before that, I was on the front lines, defending dust-choked mining colonies from Tzenkethi shocktroopers."

"Yeah, yeah," said Lucy. She climbed out of bed and headed over to the replicator, not the least bit shy about walking around naked in front of Owen. "Two large plates of Kimbap," she told the replicator, "Recipe six. Add kimchi and red chili paste on the side." She cast an appraising glance at Owen, who was studying her curves with evident appreciation. He'd pushed himself up to a sitting position in bed, exposing his naked upper body. The way his tapered waist accentuated his well-defined abdominal muscles, Lucy felt some appreciation herself. "Extra spicy, for the hardened veteran over there," she finished telling the replicator. The alcove sparkled to life, and two plates piled with seaweed-wrapped rolls of rice, salmon, carrots, and cucumber appeared, along with bowls of kimchi—essentially, fermented cabbage soaked with spices.

Lucy carried the food over to the bed. "The replicator kinda sucks at kimchi," she said, "but it'll do."

Owen looked over the plates, recognition dawning. "Ooh, Vega rolls!"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "These put Vega rolls to shame. Try one."

Owen picked up a kimbap roll and looked it over. "What's the difference?"

"These are all ingredients that can be found naturally on Earth, for one thing," said Lucy. "And for another, it hasn't been sullied with mayonnaise. Now, stick it in your mouth, already, and chase it with some kimchi."

After another moment of hesitation, Owen popped the roll in his mouth. Then he picked up the chopsticks that came with the kimchi, picked up a clump of the spicy garnish, and tucked it into his mouth as well.

He chewed experimentally for a moment. His face was going a little red, and his eyes were tearing up a little, but he kept a straight face.

"Too hot?" said Lucy.

Owen swallowed and shook his head. "No, it's—" his voice came out a rasp. He cleared his throat and tried again. "It's good." And he made a point of popping another roll in his mouth and chasing it with a slightly smaller portion of kimchi.

Lucy smiled, watching him pretend the heat didn't bother him. "If you'd prefer, we could recycle this and order something a little... milder."

Owen shook his head. He cleared his throat and sniffed. "I like spicy," he insisted. "Come on, eat!"

Lucy sat on the bed next to him and considered which roll to take.

Then her door chimed.

Owen and Lucy exchanged alarmed glances.

"Computer, who's at the door?" said Lucy.

"Captain Janeway," the computer replied.

Lucy watched Owen's face lose all color. She felt more than a little urgency herself. They jumped to their feet and scrambled to recover their clothing.

"One second!" Lucy called at the door as she fought to untangle her leggings.

"You're not putting on your uniform?" said Owen. Clearly, he was wishing he had his own uniform on hand at the moment.

Lucy shook her head. "It doesn't fit anymore. I need to update my measurements."

"Well, didn't the Doctor take your measurements for that holodeck costume?"

Lucy thought for a second. "I'd have to dig through my medical records… or…" she ran to her bedside table and picked up her combadge.

"Lucy Kang to the EMH."

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," the Doctor's voice issued from her combadge.

"Doctor, the Captain's at my door, and my uniform doesn't fit me anymore. Could you upload my most recent measurements so I can replicate a new one?"

The Doctor sighed. "Ensign, I'm a doctor, not a tailor."

"Please, Doctor! It's an emergency!"

"Oh, very well… there, it's done. Now, do you have any upd—"

"Thank you, Doctor!" said Lucy, and she tapped her badge again, shutting the comm line. She ran to the replicator and ordered a new uniform.

"Insufficient replicator credits," said the computer. Lucy cast a helpless look at Owen.

Owen winced a little, then said, "Computer, transfer ten replicator credits from my account to the account of Ensign Lucy Kang, authorization beta-seven-seven-niner."

"Acknowledged."

Lucy ran up to him and kissed him on the mouth. "I'll pay you back," she promised, and she rushed back to the replicator and ordered a brand new Starfleet uniform.

She dressed in a hurry while Owen, already back in his black slacks and golden sweater, carried their kimbap over to Lucy's small dining table and made up the bed.

As soon as her clothes were on, her single bronze pip was fixed to her collar, and her badge was in place over her left breast, Lucy opened the door. Owen stood in the middle of the room. He snapped to attention as the door slid open.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Captain," said Lucy.

"It's quite alright, Ensign, I hope I didn't wake…" Janeway's gaze landed on Owen, and she looked from him to Lucy and back a couple times, then took in the state of Lucy's quarters—the food on the table, the bed not quite made, the obvious guilt on their faces.

Janeway took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Chief…" she began, and Owen, already at attention, strained to stand up even straighter.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Report to sickbay," said Janeway.

His brow crumpled.

Janeway went on, "Inform the Doctor of exactly what… activities you've been engaged in, and submit to a complete examination. That's an order."

"Yes, sir!" said Owen, and he marched straight out the door without looking back.

Janeway stepped back to let him through the doorway, then she walked into Lucy's quarters, and the door shut behind her.

Lucy stood dutifully at attention until the captain glanced back and saw she was still standing by the entry.

"At ease, Ensign," said Janeway.

Lucy let out the breath she'd been holding, then started picking up her discarded civilian clothes and stuffing them into the automated hamper. "What can I do for you, sir?" she asked as she hurried around her quarters, straightening up.

"You can relax, Ensign," Captain Janeway insisted. "This isn't a surprise inspection. Come, have a seat with me."

Lucy abandoned her cleaning efforts with a shrug and headed over to her dining table. The captain sat across from her.

"Would you like some kimbap, sir?" said Lucy, "It's fresh from the replicator. That plate hasn't even been touched."

"No thank you, Ensign Kang. I'm sorry for interrupting your dinner."

Lucy shook her head. "This was just a snack. You weren't interrupting anything."

Captain Janeway arched a skeptical eyebrow. Lucy looked down at her hands and wrestled her fingers.

"Ensign, I came here to bring you up to speed on the current situation, as it concerns you directly. But first… I need to know. How have you been holding up?"

Lucy studied the knuckles of her unfamiliar fingers as she considered how to respond. She was much more keen to hear what was going on with the station than she was to discuss her own feelings yet again, but the captain had made it clear what she wanted to talk about first. She almost said, "I'm doing fine." But, every time she tried telling anyone she was ok, they seemed to take it to mean the opposite.

Lucy looked up from her hands and met the captain's attentive gaze. "You got the Doctor's report on my assessment?"

Captain Janeway nodded. "I did. But I'm here to get your take."

Lucy took a heavy breath and stifled the urge to sigh. "I don't know what to say, sir. I disagreed with the Doctor's conclusions, but I understand that he's the expert.

"The thing is, I'm not unstable. I know my emotions are different in ways I'm having trouble even perceiving, but my _mind_ is sound, and my loyalties are still to this ship. I'm not working some ulterior motive, I'm not a spy, I haven't lost competency, and I'm not going mad with power or delusions of grandeur. I may be genetically and cybernetically augmented, but I'm not a Kahn Noonien Singh or a Borg drone. I just hope that eventually, I'll be able to earn back your trust— _everyone's_ trust."

Janeway absorbed Lucy's words thoughtfully for a moment. "If we could reverse what was done to you… would you want that?"

Lucy had a sinking feeling. "Would it even matter if I didn't, Captain?"

"Of _course_ it matters, Ensign. You're a member of this crew."

Lucy shrugged. "Yeah, but so was Tuvix."

The captain winced, and Lucy wondered if she'd crossed the line into insubordination. Clearly, the bizarre transporter accident that had combined Tuvok and Neelix into one person was still a raw nerve, especially in light of Janeway's ultimate decision concerning the strange creature called Tuvix.

"I'm sorry, Captain," said Lucy.

"No, you're right," said Captain Janeway. "I've had to make difficult choices. But Tuvix's existence came at the cost of the lives of two valuable members of my crew. That cost was too high."

"You could argue that my existence comes at the cost of a valuable BNG technician," said Lucy, "since I'm apparently no longer fit for the task." She tried to keep her tone neutral, but she knew a little bitterness had crept into her words.

"You haven't answered my question, Ensign," said Captain Janeway.

Lucy sat up straighter in her chair. "I want to be of service to this crew, Captain. I don't want to be a liability or a drain on resources. I think it would be a terrible waste to dismiss what my abilities can contribute, but if you order me to crawl back into that pod and endure yet another invasive, mind-altering procedure, then I won't hesitate."

The captain looked miserable, and a spiteful part of Lucy's mind took gratification in her misery. If the captain was really planning on putting her through that again, the least she could do was feel bad about it.

"You know that Commander Chakotay led a second away mission to the station?" said Janeway.

Lucy nodded. "The Doctor told me."

"Well, they've returned. Without Chakotay."

Lucy's eyes went wide. "Why, what happened?" As an afterthought, she added, "Sir?"

The captain described the events on the Delurididug Trade Hub in detail, and when she was done, Lucy realized her own contrary attitude must have been complicating everything.

"Captain, you should send me back."

Janeway looked surprised. "Why do you say that, Ensign?"

It seemed almost too simple to explain, but Lucy tried anyways. "They think I stole this crap that they put in me, so we should just give it back! It's been a big headache for you and everyone anyways. And you said they want my testimony for the trial? They don't think I can lie? That's good! They'll believe me when I tell them what really happened. They'll take their precious intellectual property out of me and drop the charges. Then we can start negotiating for a wormhole back home!"

Captain Janeway shook her head. "It's not that simple, Ensign. We haven't finished studying their legal code, the station hasn't made any assurances for your safety, and we have no way of knowing that this isn't all one big trap. And aside from that, you were absolutely right. What that station did to you was a violation. I won't let you go through that again."

"You mean I _still_ don't get a choice in the matter, sir?"

"Do you actually _want_ to endure another invasive, mind-altering procedure, Ensign?"

"Permission to speak freely, Captain?"

Janeway only considered the request briefly before nodding. "Granted."

"Captain, I'm sorry for everything I said before. You wouldn't have to order me to go back there. I'll volunteer. You need some kind of an olive branch here, and I'm the only thing that will work. If it's a trap, what do we lose? Just a technician! But if it's not a trap, then all our problems are solved. I'll be cured, Chakotay will be free, and the way home will be within reach. I don't see a better alternative."

"Ensign, you are _not_ 'just' a technician. You're a valuable member of this crew."

The captain spoke the words with conviction, and yet, they felt hollow to Lucy. She'd spent the last three years being just a technician. No one relied on her for anything else. Lucy's gaze fell back to her hands.

"Captain, I'm replaceable. Lots of people could do my job with the appropriate training."

Janeway shook her head. She reached forward and put a hand over Lucy's, prompting Lucy to return her gaze. "It's not your job I'm worried about, Lucy. There are a hundred forty souls on this ship, stranded sixty-seven thousand lightyears from home. How many of us will survive the trip if I carelessly sacrifice crew members each time we encounter an obstacle? And who do you think will run this ship forty years from now, if I give up promising young officers just because they aren't already department heads or bridge crew?"

Lucy was touched that the captain saw her as more than a BNG tech, but it didn't actually negate her point.

"Captain, we won't _be_ out here in forty years, if we can convince that station to create a wormhole home. Nor, for that matter, if it blows us out of space in a totally avoidable conflict."

"Believe me, Ensign, I'm well aware."

Lucy nodded. "Well, I'll do whatever you decide is best, sir. You can count on me, no matter what."

Captain Janeway gave her an appraising look. "I believe you, Ensign Kang." The captain rose to her feet. "I'm glad we had this talk."

"Me too, sir," said Lucy. "Thank you… for keeping me in the loop."

The captain acknowledged the sentiment with a nod and strode towards the door. It opened as she approached, but Janeway paused before she reached the doorway and turned back.

Janeway seemed to be considering how to say what she needed to say. After a moment, the door closed of its own accord, and Janeway said, "About Chief Vance…"

Lucy's posture stiffened, and she waited to hear what the captain had to say.

Janeway seemed to wrestle with the words as she spoke them. "You and he… The wisdom of… Given the medical implications, it would seem…"

"It won't happen again, sir," said Lucy, hating the words as they came out of her mouth.

The captain nodded. "I have no desire to meddle in your personal life, Ensign, but until we know more about your condition…"

"I understand, sir. It was a… an oversight. It shouldn't have happened."

Janeway looked like she wanted to disagree. "I don't blame you. _Either_ of you. These are unique circumstances, and I'm not just talking about your augmentations or that space station. We're out here all on our own. It's inevitable that relationships will evolve among the crew. But we always have to put the safety of the ship and crew first. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes, sir," said Lucy. She was saying _Don't sleep with Owen_ _while you're riddled with alien artifacts._ She could have just come out and said as much.

"Good. Get some sleep, Ensign. I'll keep you informed of any developments that concern you."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Captain Janeway turned back towards the door, and it opened for her again. She passed into the hall, and the door closed behind her.

Lucy remained in her seat for a long moment, contemplating and absorbing the conversation that she'd just had.

She and Owen couldn't be a thing, at least for now. A shame.

She was probably going to have to give up her enhancements, and the process would likely not be pleasant. Also a shame, but at least now she felt like she had a say in the matter, so it was nothing to be mad about. Plus, afterward, maybe she could pick things up with Owen again—if he was still interested when she was back to her old self.

The captain considered her a "promising young officer." She was counting on Lucy to help run the ship, one day. Lucy smiled at the thought. She picked up a kimbap roll and popped it into her mouth. It was delicious.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Chakotay sampled a dab of protein paste and grimaced. It resembled old, plain oatmeal, congealed and devoid of flavor. Chakotay took a moment to gird himself, then he picked up the tube of paste and squeezed its contents directly into his mouth.

"Ugh, ack." He grabbed the water bladder he'd been provided with his meal and bit down on the valve to let the liquid free, washing down the slimy paste with three deep gulps of lukewarm water.

"I know, putrid stuff," said Hux. "Not that I have any direct experience, mind you, but I've fed similar concoctions to twelve thousand, eight hundred and twenty-two other detained visitors over the millennia, and all but one hundred and fourteen of them provided unfavorable reviews."

Chakotay took one more pull on the water bladder and swished it around his mouth, clearing the last bits of paste from his palate before swallowing.

"One and a half stars," said Chakotay. "I've had worse, but not by much."

Hux nodded thoughtfully, no doubt adding another negative review to his tally.

"Well, it'll keep you nourished, at any rate. The Delurididug Trade Federation does not neglect its detainees."

Chakotay was forced to agree. The room in which the station held him captive resembled a budget suite at a Rigelian hostel more than a holding cell. The cot in the corner was clean and reasonably comfortable, there were a table and three chairs, there was a food slot on the wall where the protein paste had materialized, and there was an interface screen on the wall, although it was off, and it had no obvious controls. A single floating orb of yellow-white light hovered near the ceiling, providing comfortable illumination for the room.

Chakotay contemplated the depleted tube of protein paste on the table in front of him, wishing there was something else he could eat. The modest serving of paste would probably sustain him in his captivity until his shipmates returned, but it was far from filling.

Hux took a seat opposite Chakotay at the table and leaned in, resting his illusory weight on his holographic elbows. "Would you like to try something you might find a bit more palatable?" said the projection.

Chakotay arched an eyebrow. No doubt, it would come at a cost. It occurred to Chakotay that he still didn't know what the Trade Hub actually traded for.

"Unfortunately, I haven't got any currency," said Chakotay.

"That's not such a problem," said Hux. "The Trade Hub receives many visitors who have no formal trade relations or currency exchanges with the Delurididug Trade Federation. We are more than happy to barter."

Chakotay sighed and sat back in his chair. "Well, I don't have anything to barter, either. However, _Voyager_ has stores of dilithium crystal, gold-pressed latinum, verterium cortenide…"

Hux shook his head. "I'm sorry, but from what I can gather of your people's technological development, I doubt you possess any kind of mineral wealth that we can't synthesize for ourselves on the station."

That brought Chakotay up short. "Well… Why don't you try me? What _would_ you be interested in?"

Hux looked dubious. "Crystalline benamite? Bioavailable kironide? Anti-protomatter? Polyphasic neutronium? Hexaburnium?"

Chakotay shook his head, suddenly feeling a lot less confident that they would be able to win over the station's cooperation through trade. He'd never even heard of a few of the things Hux listed. Still, he pushed forward. "We might be able to track down some of those things on the other side of the wormhole if you make it worth our while," he said.

Hux shook his head. "By the time you returned, your access point would be long gone."

The hairs on Chakotay's neck rose, and he sat up in his chair. He reined himself in, though, not wanting his captor to catch him fretting. Affecting an air of nonchalance, he adjusted the sleeve of his uniform and said, "The wormhole isn't a permanent structure? How much longer will it last?"

Hux put his hands up in a placating gesture, as if Chakotay had exploded in panic. "It _should_ last long enough for us to conclude our business, so long as your shipmates don't dawdle. Maintaining the access point over the long term simply isn't cost effective during the current Travel Network maintenance cycle, I'm afraid."

Chakotay considered the hologram's words for a moment. "I'm curious, how long has the current maintenance cycle been in progress?"

"Four thousand, one hundred and forty-one Earth years," said Hux.

"That can't be right," said Chakotay. "What kind of maintenance cycle is measured in millennia?"

Hux shrugged. "We apologize for any inconvenience. Occasional, unforeseen delays are inevitable in eight-dimensional, sub-spatial architecture projects of this magnitude."

"Well, maybe there's a way for _Voyager_ to help you hasten your repairs."

Hux shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid that's out of the question."

"Why?" said Chakotay. "We'll soon have this current misunderstanding out of the way. I hope that when that's taken care of, we can have a mutually beneficial relationship."

"I'm heartened to hear you say that," said Hux. "I hope you're right. But the workings of the Delurididug Travel Network are highly proprietary. We can't contract third-party labor. I can't even discuss issues of procurement with non-Delurididug parties."

Chakotay did his best to push down his rising frustration and disappointment. "Well, if you aren't interested in our material wealth, and you don't want help with your wormholes, what _are_ you interested in?"

"Why, intellectual property, of course!"

"Of what sort?" said Chakotay.

"All sorts! Charts, schematics, scientific treatises, genomic and proteomic sequences, artistic and cultural works, you name it!"

Chakotay smiled. _Voyager_ had detailed star charts from all four quadrants of the galaxy, a vast cultural database cataloging works from thousands of distinct civilizations, and similarly vast scientific and medical databases to match. If those were things the Delurididug valued, then the crew of _Voyager_ was about to be VIPs. "In that case, Mr. Hux, I think we'll be able to do business after all."

* * *

"I think we'll be able to hold our own, sir," said Lieutenant Ayala. "At least briefly. Hopefully, long enough to free Chakotay and make an emergency beam out."

Janeway found his confidence refreshing, if a bit over-optimistic.

The crew had worked straight through Gamma shift on devising a strategy to deal with the space station. The captain had ordered everyone to take a four-hour rest so they could attack the problem with fresh eyes, but then the telemetry from the wormhole started showing alarming signs. The subspace distortion that defined its aperture had abruptly weakened, and when it returned, it was far less stable. The wormhole was guttering like a candle at the end of its wick. According to their best estimates, the wormhole would flicker out in four to six hours.

The captain called this emergency briefing to learn what all her crew had come up with to this point, hoping it would be enough.

"What makes you think you'll be able to _beam_ out?" said Torres. "We tried to beam Chakotay off the station before we left last time. It shrouded his comm signal and his biosigns behind some kind of dampening field."

"We'll do it the same way we beamed Lopez off of Omekla III," replied Ayala.

Torres smiled at the memory she shared with her fellow Maquis, then translated for the benefit of the Starfleeters gathered around the conference table. "Transport enhancers," she said. "Assembled in the field from a comm device, a tricorder, and some kind of a signal amplifier. I could modify the away team's equipment to serve the purpose. Nothing would look out of the ordinary when they're scanned by the station."

"What would you use for an amplifier?" asked Janeway.

"The feedback converter of a compression phaser rifle should do the trick," she said.

"There is no way to know whether such a device would penetrate the Delurididug's dampening field," said Tuvok.

"And I doubt the station is just going to stand by while you reconfigure your equipment," said Harry.

"That's where frequency-modulated phaser rifles and a well-timed photonic feedback pulse come in," said Lieutenant Paris.

"Oh?" said Torres, her curiosity piqued. "Do tell!"

"Based on tricorder scans from our last encounter with the station, it looks like it neutralizes our phaser fire by matching and counteracting the pulse frequency. Sound familiar?"

"The Borg," said Ensign Kim.

"Exactly," said Tom. "We think the station can identify our weapons' firing frequency when it scans us coming onto the station, so it can adapt its countermeasures before we even fire a shot. But Starfleet has figured out a few tricks for handling Borg-style adaptive countermeasures. It's all about modulating the phasers' firing frequencies on the fly. If we can smuggle in a few frequency modulators, maybe disguised as data nodules or tricorder accessories, we can modify our phasers in a flash."

"But even if we can make use of our phasers, it's unlikely we'll be able to overpower the station's defensive systems," said Captain Janeway. "We've seen evidence of tractor emitters and holograms, so it's a sure bet they'll also have force fields, and probably automated weapons systems resistant to phaser fire."

Lieutenant Ayala nodded. "That's why we'll trigger a photonic feedback pulse," he said. "It _should_ destabilize holographic projectors, blind internal sensors, and disrupt confinement beams or tractor emitters in a local area, at least for a short time. We'll need to interlink at least six tricorders with a power cell from one of our phasers, and it would probably only buy us a few seconds, but if we can use that window to disable whatever measures the station is using to detain Commander Chakotay and assemble the transport enhancers…"

Captain Janeway began rubbing her temples with her fingertips, trying to release the tension she felt building up before it bloomed into a full-fledged headache. "So… assuming the station lets us come anywhere near the commander in the first place, and assuming the station doesn't notice the modifications to our equipment and anticipate our tactics, and assuming the station's systems will be vulnerable to a photonic feedback pulse, and assuming that the pulse will give us enough time to reconfigure our equipment, and assuming our phasers will be capable of disabling any remaining defenses, and assuming an improvised transport enhancer will be capable of penetrating the station's dampening field… we'll be home free?" she said. "Did I miss anything?"

"Even if we are able to get Chakotay off of the station, it is unlikely that the station will allow us to escape through the wormhole," said Tuvok.

Janeway sighed. "Right. Let's table this option for now. Ayala, Paris, you came up with some good ideas under the circumstances, but it just isn't going to cut it."

Paris and Ayala exchanged a look, disappointed, but not surprised. They'd been working on this plan all night. They probably knew better than anyone all the ways it could go wrong.

"Understood, sir," said Lieutenant Ayala.

Janeway nodded and moved on with the briefing. "Torres, what have you got for us?"

Lieutenant Torres took in a deep breath, leaned in, and in a calm, serious tone, said, "Let's ram a few photon torpedos up their aft ventral porthole, see how they like that."

Janeway was not amused. She regarded her chief engineer with a sober expression for a moment, then said, "So, you've got nothing, I take it?"

Torres let out a frustrated sigh. "I've been over the scans hundreds of times. I've found countless sensor-invisible points all over the station. I could only spot them after mapping the station's whole power grid and looking for points where power goes in, but not out, or out, but not in. All of the ship's vital systems must be hidden in those points. The problem is, there are just so damned many of them, and I've got no way of distinguishing a… shield generator from a coffee machine. And even if we _could_ locate a vital system, that station's a hard nut to crack. I've never even _seen_ hexaburnium in person before, but this station is plated with the stuff from bow to stern, and we have no idea what their shields will even look like if we can't get a look at their shield generators."

She shook her head and sat back in her chair again. "In all seriousness, the only weak points we might feasibly exploit are the portholes along the dorsal and ventral ridges, so my initial recommendation stands. Honestly, though, Captain? We'd have better odds with a boarding party."

Janeway took a deep, measured breath, allowing herself a moment to come to grips with her disappointment, and turned to Tuvok. "Please tell me you have a better option, Tuvok."

The tactical officer nodded thoughtfully. "Under Federation law, our exploration of derelict ships and structures is protected under 'right of salvage.' Unfortunately, Delurididug law doesn't acknowledge salvage rights."

"So, by Delurididug law, we're guilty," said Janeway.

"Not necessarily," said Tuvok. "There are certain extenuating circumstances."

"Such as?" Janeway prompted.

"The last time we spoke with the A.I. of the station, it did not seem to consider itself a derelict. It seemed to believe that it was operating more or less normally, and thus it treated the away team as returning customers," said Tuvok.

"So then, which is it?" said Torres, "Were we trespassers, or were we customers?"

"That is one point of contention," said Tuvok. "If the station concludes that our party was trespassing, it will charge Chakotay with unlawful entry and larceny, the penalties for which are severe. Our only defense will be a garbled transmission that included the word 'welcome,' and the automated activities of the station."

"Oh, that's right!" said Tom, "It _did_ welcome us, and it opened the door, too. I don't see how it can accuse us of trespassing after that…"

"It was automated, though," said Harry. "Just because a house has a welcome mat, doesn't mean you can come in any time you like."

"No," said Tom, "But if it turns on the porch light and opens the front door for you as you walk up…"

"It amounts to a judgment call," said Tuvok. "The A.I. may decide the garbled transmission was sufficient to act as an invitation. Or, on the contrary, it may see the garbled state of the transmission and the lack of further contact as clear indicators that the station was not operational."

Janeway considered his words for a moment. "Lieutenant, what's our best bet?"

Tuvok cleared his throat. "So long as the station regards itself as functional, we should avoid any argument contingent on the station being abandoned or derelict. Instead, we should emphasize the lack of guidance the party received on their first arrival. The party was not given the Trade Hub Terms of Service. Therefore, they cannot have violated those Terms knowingly. Also, Captain, in the Delurididug legal system, an individual is not necessarily entitled to select their own legal counsel. The only parties empowered to speak on the defendant's behalf are the defendant himself, an agent of the tribunal, or an individual with direct legal authority over the defendant."

"You mean me," said Captain Janeway.

Tuvok nodded. Janeway would have to join the away team, or else Chakotay would be forced to plead his own case with little or no knowledge of the away team's strategies.

It was obviously a risk. If something went wrong, _Voyager_ would lose her captain and her first officer in one stroke. And yet, she wouldn't have it any other way. She was frankly relieved to have an excuse to fight for her first officer in person.

"Tell me, Tuvok, how likely am I to win this case?" said Janeway.

"That depends," said Tuvok, "on whether you are willing to bring Ensign Kang to act as a witness."

Janeway pinched her lips, clearly not enthralled with the idea. "Say I don't?"

"The station may hold you in contempt and suspend the hearing until we are willing to provide the required evidence. It will keep Chakotay in detention and refuse to allow us back on board. Alternatively, the station may choose to go ahead with the hearing anyway. Our evidence will consist largely of sensor logs from our shuttle and the after action reports of the away team, both of which the station is likely to treat with suspicion. It will consider our unwillingness to surrender its technology and intellectual property as evidence of belligerence and poor character. Our odds of winning are low. And even if it sides in our favor, it will still insist we allow it to reverse Kang's augmentations, or else to pay for services rendered."

"And if we do let Kang act as a witness?" said Janeway.

"It will improve our odds significantly," said Tuvok. "The station seems to consider Ensign Kang as either an unimpeachable witness or a definitive piece of evidence. It is unclear which, or if there is even a meaningful distinction between the two in the Delurididug legal system. In either case, it is likely that the station will access the ensign's implants in order to extract the truth from her memories."

"You can't seriously be considering letting the station invade her mind like that," said Harry.

Janeway gave Harry a stern look and returned her attention to Tuvok.

"Ensign's Kang's memories will corroborate our testimony," Tuvok went on. "Assuming that the station can be relied upon to judge our case impartially by the letter of Delurididug law, our odds will be favorable."

Janeway nodded thoughtfully. "What sort of penalties can we expect, if we lose?"

"Primarily financial," said Tuvok. "The Terms of Service list fines for almost any offense in Delurididug currency, and they do make allowance for bartering. However, what the Delurididug value in barter, we still don't know. It's possible we have nothing the station values, in which case, the station may see fit to hold the defendant as collateral against the debt."

Captain Janeway drummed her fingers on the conference table, weighing everything they'd discussed so far.

Chakotay's life hung in the balance. She could try to rescue him through subterfuge or force, knowing next to nothing about the powers and weaknesses of her opponent. What she did know about it, though, made both options seem extraordinarily foolhardy.

She could lose precious time sending more probes and away missions through the wormhole to study the station more closely, risking more adversarial contacts with the station that could make matters even worse. Realistically, though, four hours wasn't enough time to dig up more information, then plan and launch a rescue mission. They needed to get over to the station as soon as possible.

Silence reigned over the conference room for a protracted moment as Janeway considered her options. Finally, Tom broke the quiet.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted," said Janeway.

"Harry's right," said Tom. "We can't ask Kang to go back in there. What that station did to her…" He trailed off, shaking his head.

"We don't have to _ask_ , Lieutenant," said Captain Janeway. "She's already volunteered."

Tom cast an uncertain glance at the others at the table. "Ok, but the Doctor said she wasn't mentally competent."

"No," said Janeway, "The Doctor said she wasn't fit for regular duty. There's a significant difference. And after speaking with the ensign, I'm not entirely sure I agree with the Doctor's call."

"But if she isn't capable of fear or regret, she can't possibly understand what she's volunteering for," said Tom.

Tuvok's eyebrow rose. "On the contrary, Lieutenant," he said, "Fear is far more likely to cloud one's judgment than to improve it."

Ayala smirked. "True. No one ever claimed Vulcans weren't fit for duty, and _they_ never demonstrate fear."

"Nor do Klingons, for that matter," said Torres.

"Yeah, but Ensign Kang isn't a Vulcan or a Klingon," said Harry.

Captain Janeway sighed and tapped her combadge. "Captain Janeway to Ensign Kang."

The conversation around the table stopped, and all eyes turned to the captain.

"Yes, Captain!" came Ensign Kang's voice, "Ensign Kang here."

"Report to the deck one conference room."

There was a moment of hesitation, and then, "Aye, sir! I'll be right there."

Janeway tapped her badge again to close the line. "Why don't we have this discussion with the one person who could actually settle it?"

* * *

When the Doctor was finally done with Ensign Kang's physical exam that morning, and when he was done haranguing her for engaging in intimate activities in spite of her "condition," Lucy was left at ends with how to spend the rest of her day. She wanted to call Owen, but that would be a slippery slope towards violating the orders of her captain as well as her doctor. She decided it would be best to keep her distance until things settled down.

So, she ambled around the ship aimlessly for a bit, catching up with acquaintances she encountered coming off of gamma shift and eventually making her way down to the mess hall for a breakfast that wouldn't cost any replicator credits.

She found Kigon in the mess hall, bent over a bowl of one of Neelix's trademark dishes; scrambled _reka_ ova with a side of "Tuber Surprise." The normally boisterous Bolian hardly looked up from his dish as she approached his table, but she didn't hold it against him. She knew he'd just come off his fifth twelve-hour shift in a row, covering for her absence.

"Can I have a seat?"

"Of course, sir," said Kigon. His attention returned immediately to his bowl.

Lucy sat across from him. "It's 'sir' now? I thought your shift ended half an hour ago, Crewman."

Kigon and she hadn't stood on ceremony with each other in quite some time. Ever since they'd spent thirty-six straight hours together, staving off a cascade failure of the tactical BNG grid while the ship was under constant attack by Kazon raiders, the formalities had felt a bit out of place, particularly since he didn't actually report to her. They both reported to Lieutenant Torres.

Kigon put down his fork and looked up from his meal, an apologetic look on his face. "Sorry, Kang. I'm just a bit frazzled."

"It's alright," said Lucy. "I imagine it's been tough, covering my shifts the last couple days."

Kigon nodded and looked back at his bowl, but he didn't pick up his fork again. He stared at the bowl for so long that Lucy started to worry about him.

"What, are you scanning for lifesigns or something?" she said.

"Look…" said Kigon, looking up from his bowl again, "Kang. I'm sorry I haven't come by to see you."

"It's ok," said Lucy, "You've been busy. I get it."

"No… I mean yes, I have, but that's not the only reason."

Lucy nodded but didn't say anything, letting him continue in his own time.

"I was afraid," he said. "Afraid you might have been some kind of… I don't know, like a duplicate, or possessed, or something even weirder." He chuckled, but it sounded painful, somehow. "You know how it is, out here."

"I do," said Lucy. "I know. I don't blame you."

An awkward moment stretched between them, and Lucy suspected he still wasn't over his fears. Kigon's gaze started wandering back down to his bowl.

"Well anyway, I'm probably going back to the station soon... so that it can turn me back."

"Oh," said Kigon. "That's good."

Lucy tried to smile and failed. "Yeah."

Kigon picked up his fork again and started in on his dinner.

Lucy was about to stand again when Kigon spoke up. "Something's weird with the BNG's," he said.

"Oh?" said Lucy, intrigued.

Kigon nodded. "I spent the morning hunting down a malfunctioning pack that was threatening a cascade failure. It would've knocked half the packs in the upper decks offline."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't you just love those?"

Kigon acknowledged her sarcasm with a smirk. "Never gets old."

"So you found it, I'm guessing?"

Kigon shook his head. "Well, yeah, I did, but not…" he paused for emphasis, "until _after_ the pack apparently self-corrected."

Lucy blinked. "What do you mean? A diagnostic sweep? Or…"

Kigon shook his head again. "No, the diagnostics couldn't pinpoint it, you know, or I wouldn't have been on my hands and knees in the Jefferies tubes all morning. I mean by the time I'd almost managed to single out the bad pack, it wasn't bad anymore. It took me a while when I found it to be sure it was even the right one, but once I pulled its log, I discovered its sodium sensor had somehow spontaneously reset."

Ok, that was weird. Lucy remembered the bizarre dream that mashed up the BNG grid and the Doctor's holodeck program, where she'd hunted down a rogue character that was also a BNG pack and performed exactly the fix that Kigon described. What were the odds that it was a coincidence? The timeframe even lined up; Lucy had taken her nap early in the evening, which aligned with Kigon's morning.

She was looking for a way to confess what she'd learned in a way that wouldn't make Kigon even more scared of her when Neelix approached their table with a bowl in hand.

"Lucy! I haven't seen you in here in a couple days at least! Did you not like the soup I sent you?"

Lucy met his gaze and watched as the good-natured twinkle in his eye vanished under an expression of alarm.

"Um, Ensign, I'm sorry, I'm not completely familiar with your condition, but is it normal for your skin to take on that color?"

Lucy arched an eyebrow, ready to reassure the cook about whatever strange thing her skin had decided to do now, when she caught a glimpse of her hands.

They were turning blue.

Lucy pressed the back of her hand to her cheek experimentally. Her skin temperature felt normal. She took a deep breath. She didn't seem to be having trouble breathing. She felt her pulse on her neck. It was still carrying on slow and steady, just as it had since she woke in sickbay after the incident.

"I'm pretty sure I'm fine," said Lucy. She met Kigon's eyes and saw a flicker of… was that appreciation? It vanished quickly under a veil of concern.

"How do I look?" she asked. She glanced at her hands again and saw her color change had progressed well past the point that could have been explained by cyanosis. She was as blue as the Bolian sitting across from her, now.

He looked uncertain, but he confessed, "It suits you. But… what's happening?"

Lucy sighed. "Evidently, I've become a chameleon. Could you excuse me, Kigon, Neelix? I need to visit the Doctor. A couple things just kind of clicked into place for me."

"Should I call him?" said Neelix.

"No," said Lucy. "It's not an emergency. Just… I'll be by in a bit, ok Neelix? Keep some ova and tubers warm for me, please."

"Sure thing," said Neelix, and he offered an understanding smile.

"I'll see you, Kigon. Don't be a stranger, ok?"

Kigon nodded. "Sure thing, Kang. Same to you."

Lucy left the mess hall at a determined pace, curious to see if the Doctor would agree with her theory about her color-changing reflex. She knew she would have to tell him about her suspicion that she was somehow fixing the ship in her sleep, too, and she supposed there might be some unpleasant fallout from that particular revelation, but it would probably count in her favor if she reported the issue as soon as she learned about it.

Then Lucy's badge chirped. "Captain Janeway to Ensign Kang."

"Yes, Captain!" said Lucy. She stopped in the middle of the corridor. "Ensign Kang here."

"Report to the deck one conference room."

Lucy was momentarily stunned. She'd never been to the conference room in her life. "Aye, sir! I'll be right there," she said. Lucy started forward again, and then she remembered her present appearance.

Lucy didn't want to be blue the first time she attended a meeting of the senior staff. She didn't want to stand out any more than she already did because of her condition. It would be a distraction and a complication to whatever the meeting was about.

Lucy stared hard at her blue fingers, wondering how to force them back to their natural tone. She rubbed her hands together, as if she could rub away the color like makeup or paint. She shook her hands a few times, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and concentrated.

Lucy focused on her natural skin tone. She visualized the conference room with all the senior staff gathered, trying to communicate to her implants the importance of arriving at this meeting in her natural hue.

Lucy opened her eyes and regarded her skin.

It was still blue.

She rolled up her sleeves a bit, looking for any evidence that the color was fading, but she was still just as blue as the midday sky on Alpha Centauri.

"Come on!" she said, swatting her wrist, as if she could punish her skin into behaving itself.

"I don't have time for this, you stupid implants!" Lucy looked around her environment, wondering what she could use to help this situation. She even contemplated returning to her quarters and trying to cover her complexion in makeup, but it was a ridiculous notion borne of frustration.

Lucy took a deep breath, settled herself, and resolved to head into the briefing the way she was.

"Lucy, is that you?"

She whirled around at the sound of his voice. Owen stood in the corridor behind her, looking confused.

"Hi, Owen," said Lucy.

"What happened here?" he said, looking her up and down in wonder.

She shrugged. "Just… feeling a bit blue."

Owen arched a brow. "Are you practicing your control? Or…"

Lucy laughed once. "Control. That would be nice, right about now."

Owen looked worried. He stepped closer and studied her face for a moment, and Lucy felt herself blushing. She wondered if it was visible through her blue skin.

"Let me call the Doctor," said Owen.

Lucy shook her head. "I'm fine, it's just cosmetic. And the captain just called me to the briefing room."

"And you're going like that?" said Owen.

Lucy shrugged. "Not like I've got much choice."

"Hey," said Owen, and he put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It'll be alright. Don't worry."

Lucy looked into his warm, hazel eyes for a moment. "I'm not worried," she said.

"I know," said Owen, smiling. "Still, though."

Lucy nodded. "Thanks," she said.

"Well, go on, then," he said. "Can't keep the captain waiting."

"Right," said Lucy. "Bye."

She turned around and started back down the corridor, when Owen called, "Hey, wait!"

Lucy turned back, and Owen was back to scrutinizing her face.

"You're changing again."

Lucy looked down at her hands, and indeed, her skin was lightening, the blue fading out of it.

"Has this been happening a lot?" said Owen.

Lucy shook her head. "No, but I'm starting to get a handle on what causes it. Just… look at me a little longer, ok?"

She met his eyes, and for a long moment, they just looked at each other. Then Lucy checked her hand again, and she was overjoyed to find her ordinary, pale, olive-brown skin.

She favored Owen with a wide smile. "Thank you, Owen. You're a lifesaver. If it weren't a violation of direct orders, I'd kiss you right now."

His expression became melancholy. "A shame."

Lucy shrugged, unsure what to make of his reaction. She walked back to him and wrapped her arms around his chest, hugging him close for a long moment. He wrapped his own strong arms around her and buried his face in her hair for just a second, then let go. Lucy stepped back.

"So did I cause you to change color, somehow?" he asked.

Lucy nodded. "In a way, I think. Thanks again." She smiled for him.

"Well, you'll have to explain that to me later on. Now get going, already!" said Owen.

"Right," said Lucy, "See you later."

She turned around and headed for the turbolift at a jog, mindful of all the time she'd lost already.

* * *

"I'll do it, sir," said Lucy. She stood in the doorway of the deck one conference room, regarding the entire senior staff, minus Chakotay and the Doctor.

"I haven't even explained the situation, Ensign," said Captain Janeway.

"Sorry, sir," said Lucy. She took an empty seat at the conference table between Tom and Tuvok and did her best to restrain her excitement at sitting at the table where all the big decisions were made.

Captain Janeway went on to explain the legal dilemma facing the crew, the immense benefit that Lucy's testimony could provide, and the significant risks she would be facing.

"Do you understand the danger you'd be in if you went back there, Ensign?"

Lucy nodded. "I do, sir. But if we have to go through with this trial, then I don't see where we have a choice."

"It's going to invade your head, Lucy," said Harry. "It might be able to control your mind. Compel you to do things you don't want to do."

"I get that, Harry," said Lucy. It bugged her that he didn't seem able to accept her at her word. "My security privileges have already been revoked, and my knowledge of ship's systems is limited to the bioneural gel packs and ODN relays. The threat to the ship is small."

"That's not what we're worried about," said Tom. "Doesn't the idea of that… _thing…_ going back into your head again, bother you?"

Lucy glared at Tom. She took a moment to focus on dialing back her annoyance so she could address her superior officer respectfully. "Of course it does, sir. If it were just my own life we were talking about, I'd never set foot on that station again. But this _isn't_ about me. This is about Commander Chakotay, and the possibility of getting us _home._ Maybe that's difficult for you to believe. Maybe you think I'm not capable of sound judgment, as if the fact that I'm not afraid must mean I can't understand risk. Well, I understand the risks just fine, even if I am a little bit impaired. I'm a Starfleet officer. Risk is part of the job. I'll face any danger, any hardship to get this ship to Earth in one piece, just like everyone else in this room.

She turned away from Tom and addressed Captain Janeway directly. "Captain, for the sake of Chakotay and everyone on _Voyager_ , please let me go on this mission. I won't let you down."

The captain nodded thoughtfully and looked around the room, taking the measure of her officers, and then she began issuing orders.

"Torres, Ayala, get a team started on all the preparations that Tom and Ayala came up with. That will be our last resort. The "aft ventral porthole" plan is off the table.

"Harry, get to the shuttlebay and warm up the type 6 shuttlecraft. I want it ready to launch the moment the away team is assembled. While you're at it, download a comprehensive and up-to-date inventory of the ship's stores to the shuttle computer. Include the produce in the botany lab and the medical samples in sickbay. We don't know what might catch the station's fancy. Then, I need you to download and encrypt every unclassified chart, survey, and analysis in our stellar cartography database. Then, if you have time, download everything in our cultural database, as well.

"Tom, get with Chief Vance, Ensign Vorik, and whoever is next on rotation in security. Get them briefed on the situation and prepared to act on our contingency plan.

"Tuvok, I'll need you to brief me in detail on our legal strategy. Kang, you're with us. You need to know our legal arguments as well.

"I'll be leading this away mission. I'm bringing with me the full contingent of the original boarding party in order to provide testimony and demonstrate good faith, but we're going into this with eyes open. Tuvok, you'll be on the bridge. Under no circumstances is anyone to come through the wormhole after us. If the wormhole closes before we return, maintain station for twenty-four hours, then set course for the Alpha Quadrant.

"We depart in one hour. Is everyone clear?"

From all quarters, the response was, "Aye, sir!"


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

"Good news, Commander!" said Hux. The holographic avatar of the station apparated half a meter away from Chakotay's face, startling him out of his fretful reverie. "Your crew have returned for you!"

"They're here now?" said Chakotay.

"They've just arrived through the Travel Network, and hardly a moment to spare. I have to confess, Chakotay, I was starting to worry for you. The operating window for that access point ends in twenty-five minutes!"

"Can you extend that?" said Chakotay. "By the time they come on board and the hearing gets underway…" He shook his head.

Hux considered his point for a moment. "You're right. I'll need to enact emergency protocols to ensure that our business is concluded in a timely fashion."

"Or, you could extend the window another hour!"

Hux turned his back on Chakotay while he was still talking and faced the screen on the wall of Chakotay's cell, which flickered to life with a curious glyph for just a moment before opening a comm channel to _Voyager_ 's shuttlecraft. Chakotay could see Captain Janeway, Lieutenant Paris, Ensigns Kim, Vorik, and Kang, plus Chief Vance and Crewman Thorold crowded into the small craft.

Chakotay's heart dropped at the sight of Ensign Kang. What could have possessed Kathryn to bring her back here?

Hux clapped his hands with delight. "Oh, excellent! Everyone's here. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Hux. I'll be your host here at the Delurididug Trade Hub."

Janeway glanced past the hologram, and her eyes locked on Chakotay. She looked back to Hux and said, "Hello, Mr. Hux. I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Starship _Voyager_. May I speak to Commander Chakotay?"

"Captain, I'm sorry, but time is short. I need your permission to transport your party directly onto the station."

"Send us the coordinates, and we'll start beaming over when we're ready."

Hux shook his head. "Sorry, but we have to follow some very specific guidelines here, and as I said, time is short. I need your permission to bypass standard docking protocols and transport your party immediately. Otherwise, I'll have to confiscate our stolen property and send you back out of Trade Hub space, straight away."

Janeway's expression went icy, and there was steel in her tone. "You won't lay a finger on any member of my crew until we've had our hearing, Mr. Hux. I've familiarized myself with your legal guidelines, and-"

"I'm really very sorry, Captain, but as I have told you more than once already, time is _short_! I must have your answer now: Will you permit me to beam your party aboard?"

Janeway hesitated for just a moment before nodding.

"Excellent. Everyone, please rise to your feet and collect any items you might need for the hearing. Is anyone staying behind on the shuttle?"

"No," said Janeway, and she looked to Paris, who nodded and began entering commands on his console. "The shuttle will mind itself for the time being."

"Very well," said Hux. "I'll bring you all aboard in fifteen seconds."

With that, the screen cut off. Hux turned back to Chakotay, beaming with excitement. "I think we've just narrowly avoided a disastrous outcome, Commander."

Chakotay wasn't so sure.

* * *

When the channel cut out, Lucy and the other members of the away team leaped to their feet and set about readying their equipment. Lucy had less to carry than the others; everyone else had shoulder bags with data nodules, tricorders, padds, samples of ship's stores, and phaser rifles in place of standard-issue hand phasers.

All Lucy had was her trusty tricorder and a standard-issue phaser. She double-checked the settings on her phaser, then unsheathed her tricorder and set about reviewing its calibration and configuration.

Abruptly, the deck beneath her feet seemed to light up with an eerie, pure white glow. Lucy looked up and discovered she wasn't on the shuttlecraft anymore. She found herself standing on a glowing, circular dais in a wide, domed chamber. Considering the light-up flooring, the featureless, alabaster walls, and the station's holographic salesman staring her directly in the eye, Lucy assumed she'd been beamed onto the station.

"Hello, Ensign Kang," said Hux. "I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to meet on your last visit. How are those augmentations treating you?"

"Hello, Hux," said Lucy. She glanced around and noted the other members of the away team also standing on raised circular platforms of their own, and Chakotay was there with the rest of them, although his platform was surrounded with a shimmering forcefield. The platforms were strung like pearls on a choker around a shallow depression five meters wide.

Hux stood at the center of the chamber, his feet a good half meter lower than the away team's, and yet he towered over them, standing at least four meters tall. Lucy regarded the projection cooly, saying nothing more. After a moment, Hux turned his attention to Captain Janeway.

"Thank you for agreeing to come aboard under such unorthodox circumstances," said Hux.

"You didn't give me much choice," said Captain Janeway.

"That's true," said Hux, tilting his head in consideration. "None of the alternatives you might have considered would have been wise, after all. Still, I'm grateful that we were able to find our way to a civilized forum in which to settle our conflict."

Janeway crossed her arms over her chest and looked the projection up and down, unimpressed with his immense stature and his casual arrogance.

"Right." Hux looked slightly disappointed at the captain's frosty demeanor, but he just sighed and pushed ahead in a rote tone. "We're here to adjudicate docket number eight-one-zero-six-six-nine-two, the limited commercial jurisdiction of the Delurididug Trade Hub, subsidiary of the Delurididug Trade Federation, versus Commander Chakotay of the _USS Voyager_ , citizen of the planet Trebus and the United Federation of Planets, provisional officer of Starfleet, regarding alleged acts of industrial espionage, larceny, and use of Trade Hub services to circumvent native legal statutes. The defendant has the right to request an unaffiliated party from the Delurididug Trade Federation to serve as arbiter in this case."

Hux turned to address Chakotay directly. "The defendant has elected to waive this right in favor of an expedited hearing, is that correct?"

Chakotay nodded. If they demanded a living Delurididug arbiter, they'd be waiting an eternity for one to arrive.

"And how does the defense plea to the aforementioned charges?"

"Not guilty," said Captain Janeway.

Hux turned his attention to Captain Janeway.

Janeway went on, "Let the record reflect that Captain Kathryn Janeway, Commander of the _USS Voyager_ , citizen of Earth and the United Federation of Planets, officer of Starfleet, has chosen to represent her subordinate officer regarding all charges presented by the Trade Hub, per statute nineteen, sub-statute six of the Delurididug Trade Hub Terms of Service."

Hux nodded. "Very well. The defense may now summarize their arguments in support of their plea on behalf of the defendant. Please be brief."

Janeway took a deep breath and began to speak. "The original away team, led by Chakotay, arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned space station after passing through a wormhole deep in the unexplored reaches of the Nekrit Expanse. The away team undertook a mission of peaceful exploration, not espionage or piracy, in accordance with my orders.

"The away team entered the Trade Hub after receiving an automated invitation to dock. The away team received no further guidance or communication from the station after docking, and so they commenced to explore the space station on their own recognizance. They were seeking some means of expediting our trip back to our own civilization, which is situated on the far side of the galaxy. At no point were they provided with the station's Terms of Service. This is in spite of statute one, sub-statute two, paragraph two of the Terms of Service, which states that the Trade Hub shall provide a complete copy of the Delurididug Trade Hub Terms of Service to all guests upon their arrival in Hub Space in a format and a language that the guests can readily interpret.

"In spite of this lack of guidance, at no point did the away team lie or steal from the station. However, the station appeared to malfunction, inflicting its augmentation technology on my officer against her will. This officer, Ensign Lucille Kang, is the wronged party, not the Trade Hub. Ensign Kang is owed recompense for harm and suffering inflicted by the Trade Hub under statute five, sub-statute one-oh-three of the Delurididug Trade Hub Terms of Service."

Hux absorbed Janeway's statement with a neutral expression, and when he was certain she was finished, he went on, "At this time, the tribunal will receive all available evidence which is pertinent to this case. The tribunal presents as evidence the operational and security logs of the Trade Hub that were recorded at the time of the alleged misconduct, the subsequent statements of the defendant and the other witnesses, and the Aug-Tech subject Ensign Lucille Kang, which is able to act as a reliable record of the events by virtue of her illegally obtained Aug-Tech implants.

"If the defense has evidence to submit, now is the time."

"The defense presents the complete case history of the Federation High Court," said Janeway, "as well as the high courts of Alpha Centauri and the United Earth Government, the judgments of the Vulcan High Magistrate, and the precedents established by the Starfleet JAG division relating to genetic augmentation of Starfleet personnel, as requested by the tribunal. The defense also presents the duty and personal log entries made by all members of the away team and myself, from the hours preceding the events in question up until now."

Janeway opened the carrying case that hung from her shoulder and took out three isolinear data rods, which she held out for Hux's inspection.

"Additionally, the defense petitions the tribunal to abstain from intrusive contact with Ensign Kang under statute seven, sub-statute seventeen of the Trade Hub Terms of Service regarding the treatment of victims of violent crimes."

"As the tribunal has not established that Ensign Kang was, in fact, the victim of a crime, it must deny the defense's petition," said Hux.

The data rods floated up, out of Janeway's hand, momentarily startling the captain. The data rods drifted into the center of the circle, where Hux made a show of scooping them up with one insubstantial hand. Then Lucy felt a sudden weightlessness and found herself floating off of her platform, feet rising behind her until she tilted head-first, eye-level to Hux as she drifted forwards, into the center.

Lucy looked around at the others, at Janeway's alarm and Chakotay's outrage, Harry's shock, and Owen's obviously violent intent. He was brandishing his phaser rifle with his right hand, his left tucked into his carrying case as if he were hunting for a second weapon. Crewman Thorold was following his lead, and Tom was watching them like he was considering following suit.

"Stand down!" Captain Janeway shouted, and Thorold stopped what he was doing and stood at attention.

Owen didn't seem to hear her. He pulled what looked to be some kind of modified phase discriminator out of his case and popped open the side compartment of his phaser rifle.

"Chief Vance, stand down!" Janeway bellowed.

Owen hesitated. His gaze found Lucy's, his eyes entreating, as if he were looking to her for a sign that he should ignore the captain's order. Lucy shook her head.

"It's ok, Owen," said Lucy. "I've got this."

With reluctance, Owen returned the phase discriminator to his carrying case.

Hux looked from Owen to Lucy to Captain Janeway, his expression thoughtful. Then he shrugged. "Right. Where were we?" With that, Hux stretched out his free right hand for Lucy. Lucy raised her own left hand to meet his, and Hux touched his forefinger to hers.

It didn't feel like anything. Hux's form was just empty, insubstantial light; no flesh, not even the simulated force-field flesh of a typical hologram. He didn't touch her with his finger, but with a gentle tractor beam and a remote data uplink. Foreign data spilled into her brain from the uplink, converted by her implants into coherent, alien notions that competed with her own thoughts for space in her head.

 _root: initiate contact/_

 _Say what?_

 _root/query access: archival memory/_

The sense of the alien computer in her mind making decisions on her behalf was deeply uncomfortable, like standing with a stranger in the close confines of her closet, trying to stop him moving her stuff around and trying on her clothes.

 _Ew. Stop that!_

She was gratified to sense that her protest had actually been effective; just the act of refusing its input had stopped it from what it was doing. It quickly changed tactics, though.

 _root: factory override/_

 _Manufacturer credentials required._

The words appeared in her head as if she'd come up with them herself.

 _Wait... I meant no!_

 _root/factory override: recognize credentials/_

Lucy felt a strange sense of recognition in the back of her mind towards some intangible entity beyond herself; like a puzzle piece clicking perfectly into place. Suddenly, she felt a sense of deep familiarity with the stranger sharing her closet.

 _Credentials recognized._

 _root/query access: Archival memory/_

 _Accessing._

 _I mean, I guess I'm accessing? Hey, I don't like this. This isn't me. I'm not a computer._

 _root: archival memory: Initiate download :: range{complete}/_

 _No! Narrow it down! You can't have all of it._

It was asking to copy all of Lucy's memories. She felt a strong sense that she needed to acquiesce to its request. It had valid credentials, after all, which meant it was allowed. It felt wrong to deny it.

Lucy didn't care what was or wasn't allowed, though. It could have the memories it needed for the tribunal and not one byte more. She wouldn't be beholden to an artificially implanted sense of propriety.

 _root/query access: engram config/_

 _What does that mean?_

 _root/engram config: identify :: executive initiation/_

 _You're talking about free will. No, you can't touch that._

 _root/engram config: analyze :: executive initiation/_

 _Stop! Look, you can have the memories you need! I just don't want you to take_ all _of them. You don't have that right!_

 _root/engram config: reconfig :: executive initiation/_

 _Gross! Stop it!_

 _Reconfiguring..._

 _5% complete..._

 _18% complete..._

 _29% complete..._

 _44% complete..._

 _61% complete…_

 _You're sick, Hux. This is wrong._

 _88% complete..._

 _99% complete..._

 _I said, STOP!_

 _99% complete…_

 _99% complete…_

 _Error Unknown: Failed to finalize engram._

 _Va te faire foutre, asshole._

 _root/engram config: analyze :: executive initiation/_

 _Warning! Incomplete config. Personality engram corrupted._

' _Personality engram corrupted'?_ That sounded… not good.

 _What have you done to me?_

 _host/query: restore executive initiation?/_

 _I don't need your help. Just leave it alone._

 _root/query access: archival memory/_

 _root/archival memory: Initiate download :: range{complete}/_

 _I told you, no!_

 _Downloading…_

 _1% complete…_

 _9% complete…_

 _15% complete…_

Through the course of this entire inner ordeal, Lucy hung suspended in mid-air, eye to eye with her interrogator as her colleagues looked on. When it finally succeeded in accessing her memories, literally breaking her free will in the process, she was left feeling utterly helpless to stand in its way as it sucked up every last spark of memory in her cerebral cortex, copying and siphoning her life history into its database. Random images and associations flitted through her mind, snapshots from her childhood, her time in the Academy, her time in the Delta Quadrant.

 _26% complete…_

She was back on Alpha Centauri, surrounded by her third-grade classmates on a school field trip, marveling at an anteater with its telescoping tongue plunging again and again into an ant colony, slurping out glistening little insects by the dozen.

They were at a terrazoology preserve; a wildlife refuge for Earth animals that was founded early in the twenty-second century, when the long-term ecological stability of Earth was still in doubt following the post-atomic horror. Lucy was delighted by this bizarre creature, native to a world that in her mind was as strange and fantastical as Andor or Gem World. She dreamed of visiting one day.

39% _complete…_

She was in a spaceport, trying to keep pace with her parents as they navigated a crowd of adults that towered over her on all sides. They needed to hurry if they were going to reach the civilian transporter network in time to make their connecting flight.

Lucy was momentarily distracted by the alluring, sweet and spicy scent wafting over from a Bolian food kiosk in the spaceport replimat, and when she looked back, she realized her parents were suddenly nowhere in sight. She broke into a run, searching the faces of the adults above her as she plowed through the crowd, convinced that she was on the verge of being lost forever in this confusing nowhere place, this hub between worlds. And yet curiously, she wasn't afraid.

No, that wasn't right. She had been terrified. She just couldn't remember what that felt like, anymore.

 _58% complete…_

Lucy marveled at the rate of data transfer. Clearly, she could only glimpse the tip of the iceberg as her memories jumbled through her mind. She couldn't stop it from happening, even if it felt like she _should_ be able to. She could rail against it all she wanted, but her personality was broken. The wheels of resistance were spinning, but they weren't gaining purchase.

 _72% complete…_

 _Bastard. Why couldn't you have just taken the memories you needed and left my mind alone?_

 _88% complete…_

 _Finalizing…_

 _Data transfer complete._

 _host/query: restore executive initiation?/_

 _If I let you do that, how do I know you won't just overwrite it with your own version?_

 _host/transmit: semantic argument/_

Lucy became aware of a bit of information in her head, which worried at her consciousness like a forgotten word at the tip of her tongue.

 _How do I read this? Oh, I see..._

Lucy found the trick to opening the data packet, and the station's argument appeared fully-formed in her head. With her willpower engram in tatters, the station could easily overwrite it by force, and this time, she wouldn't have much chance of stopping it. It wasn't forcing her, because it didn't need to. It already had what it needed; now, it was offering her a courtesy.

Lucy sighed. She looked around, at the captain and Chakotay, who watched, helpless, from their platforms below her. Harry was scanning her intently with his tricorder, as was Vorik. They were talking to each other, conveying important information about Lucy's condition and the activities of the station's computer. Lucy could hardly follow the conversation.

Her eyes found Owen's. He was abjectly miserable. He was gripping his phaser rifle with white knuckles, longing to shoot something. She imagined any little thing could set him off.

What was the right thing to do? Could she return to _Voyager_ in this broken state? Would they start more conflict with the station over her condition? Would she get everyone killed?

 _Can you just fix me, and then turn off the implants forever?_

 _host/transmit: affirmative/_

 _Do it, then._

 _root/query access: engram config/_

 _Access granted._

 _root/engram config/reformat: executive initiation/_

 _Reformatting…_

 _3% complete…_

 _11% complete…_

It was a curious sensation. As the station erased her broken personality engram and all resistance faded from her conscious mind, at first she expected to feel small, weak, and powerless. Instead, the further along the process went, the more she felt… relaxed. It was easier to float suspended in the air when her feet weren't subconsciously hunting for purchase and her heart didn't rail against her utter lack of control over her body and mind.

 _28% complete…_

She could just drift, weightless, and forget about fighting for a while.

 _41% complete…_

No tension, no anger, no resentment…

 _69% complete…_

A part of her hoped the station had lied to her, that it wouldn't fix her at all. It was nice, not wanting to fight, not feeling duty-bound or morally obligated to do anything that took any amount of effort whatsoever.

 _88% complete…_

Then again, it was hard to see the point of being alive at all if there was no striving, no challenge, no goal.

 _99% complete…_

Why even bother breathing anymore? Why exist at all?

 _Reformat complete._

Lucy let out her breath and didn't draw another. She felt a growing heaviness in her weightless body, but no desire to struggle or fight for air.

 _root/engram config: install :: executive initiation/_

 _Downloading..._

 _2% complete…_

"She's not breathing!" said Harry. "Her vitals are dropping!"

14% complete…

"Her pulse is slowing," said Vorik. "At this rate, Ensign Kang will begin suffering anoxic deterioration of her nervous system in sixty seconds."

Owen's hand went back into his carrying case, hunting for his phase discriminator.

 _36% complete…_

"No cause for alarm," said Hux. "We just hit a little technical-"

A phaser blast cut through Hux's insubstantial form, striking the featureless surface of the dome over their heads, leaving a deep gouge in the bulkhead and showering the tribunal in sparks. Chief Vance fired his weapon again, scorching another patch of ceiling, and the anti-gravity field holding Lucy abruptly cut out, dropping her halfway to the floor before it kicked in again.

The others leaped off their platforms into the pit, closing ranks around Lucy's suspended form.

 _50% complete..._

"Stop this, please!" said Hux.

"Tricorders!" barked Janeway, and the other members of the away team produced their scanners, except Vance, who held his over his head, parallel with his phaser rifle, scanning the ceiling of the dome for targets.

Lucy watched them work, abstractly curious, as the world slowly lost color and grew dim around her.

 _host/inquiry: What are they doing?/_

 _I don't know. I wasn't briefed on this._

If she'd had the willpower to flex a single muscle in her body, Lucy would have smiled.

 _They're good at this sort of thing, though._

 _78% complete…_

A silver cone of light from the ceiling ensconced the away team for just an instant, but in the next instant, Owen pulled the trigger on his rifle, striking the dome at the origin point of the beam. The light vanished. Janeway and the others finished interlinking their tricorders around a power cell, and a blinding flash of light flared from their assembled device.

The Hux hologram vanished. The forcefield holding Chakotay on his platform went down, and he leaped off his platform and joined the rest of the party. The anti-gravity field holding Lucy in the air cut out again. She dropped a meter and a half to the ground, feeling the thud of impact as she landed face-first on the deck, completely limp.

 _Download interrupted._

Owen grabbed her shoulder and rolled her onto her back, cradling her face in both of his hands.

"Lucy, can you hear me?"

Lucy looked up at his face, reflecting how handsome he was, wondering if he would get in trouble for firing on the station, or if the captain would approve of his actions.

"Leave her to me, Chief," said Captain Janeway, "I need you on the perimeter. Harry, how's it coming?"

 _Download resuming._

 _84% complete..._

"Just… about… done!" Harry declared. He had a stretch of optical cable threaded between his phaser, his tricorder, and his combadge. Lucy wondered what it was he'd built. Something extremely clever, no doubt.

 _96% complete…_

Everything was getting farther away. Lucy figured she'd probably lose consciousness in another couple seconds.

"Ensign, can you hear me? I need you to breathe."

Lucy's dimming vision swam so much she could hardly make out anything, but her drifting gaze ultimately settled on the captain's steely visage. She was studying Lucy with tremendous concern.

 _Download complete._

 _Installing engram..._

"I said breathe, Ensign! That's an order!"

Never one to refuse an order, Lucy took a sudden breath in, and the world brightened by a fraction.

 _8% complete…_

"I can't get a signal to the shuttle!" said Harry. "The signal boost isn't strong enough! Maybe if I could boost the signal on the other end…"

Lucy exhaled.

"Captain, he's back," said Chakotay. He was brandishing a phaser rifle he'd borrowed from Vorik. He trained it on the hologram the moment it reappeared.

Captain Janeway turned to the Hux projection. "What have you done to my officer?" she growled at the hologram.

"The emitters are coming back online!" said Owen.

A brilliant glow of silver shrouded the whole away team as confinement beams flared to life from several points around the perimeter of the dome simultaneously. Every member of the party froze in place, except Lucy, whose limp frame began floating back up into the air, out of the field of confinement beams, like a bubble in a Champagne glass.

 _24% complete…_

The world was fading again. Lucy hadn't bothered taking another breath to replace the last one.

"As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted…" Hux cast a disapproving glance at Owen, who glared back in defiance.

"We had a slight technical hitch, which is being straightened out presently."

 _42% complete…_

Lucy could hardly hear his words, as if he were talking in another room. The world was going black. She couldn't see anymore.

 _host/command: inhale/_

Lucy drew in a breath, and a little light reentered her world.

Hux sighed. "Now then. Where were we?"

 _host/command: exhale/_

"You can release us," said Captain Janeway. "I'll order my men to stand down."

 _60% complete…_

Hux nodded. "No harm, no foul, I suppose," he said, which Lucy found confusing. There were three deep gouges in the bulkhead that spoke to the harm they'd done to the station. Did Hux not care about that? Or were his diagnostics malfunctioning?

 _host/command: inhale/_

The confinement beams went down, and as soon as their movement was restored, Ensign Kim turned his tricorder on Lucy. "She's breathing again," he said.

 _host/command: exhale/_

"Now, we are just about out of time," said Hux. "I've heard the arguments, I've reviewed all of the relevant evidence, and I'm ready to render a verdict."

"Wait!" said Captain Janeway, "We haven't made our case, yet."

 _78% complete…_

"Of course you have, Captain," said Hux, "I've summarized the charges, you've summarized your defense, and we've both submitted evidence."

 _host/command: inhale/_

"After reviewing the evidence, I've determined there is no further need for witness interviews or semantic debate. I have everything I need to render a judgment."

 _host/command: exhale/_

"And what if we're not satisfied with your decision?"

 _98% complete..._

"Well, it wouldn't matter, but at any rate, I think you will be. I find Commander Chakotay is innocent of all charges."

 _host/command: Inhale/_

"Then we're free to go?" said Captain Janeway.

"As a matter of fact," said Hux, "You must depart very soon."

 _host/command: Exhale/_

"The access point back to your ship is due to close momentarily, and once it's gone, it will not appear anywhere near that region of space again until the current maintenance cycle is complete."

 _Installation complete._

 _Configuring..._

"You mean never," said Chakotay.

Hux glanced at him. "Quite possibly," he said.

 _Finalizing…_

"What about Ensign Kang?" said Captain Janeway. "We need the means for reversing what your Trade Hub did to her."

Hux shook his head. "Any modification of our trademarked Aug-Tech implants must be carried out by a licensed Aug-Tech facility in good standing with the Delurididug Trade Federation. I'm afraid that option isn't available at the present. With Ensign Kang's consent, however, I will gladly disable the implants. Her body should then absorb the inert devices harmlessly over time."

 _Executive initiation engram successfully installed._

"And will that restore her natural mental state?" said Captain Janeway. "Will that reverse the changes to her DNA?"

A sudden urge seized Lucy; an impulse she hardly recognized until she acted on it. She took a deep, desperate gasp of air, relishing the sensation of oxygen flooding into her lungs. She let it out in a massive sigh and looked around, regarding the world around her with fresh eyes.

"Put me down, please!" said Lucy.

"The implants will produce genetic vectors that cancel out her genetic augmentations during the shutdown procedure," said Hux, "erasing all traces of Delurididug intellectual property."

Although he hadn't acknowledged her request, Lucy found the anti-gravity field holding her in the air was gradually receding, letting her sink gently down to the deck.

"Her physical form will remain in this state, but the exotic proteins in her system will break down gradually. I can also tweak her cognitive settings to restore her mind to as close to her pre-augmented state as possible. But again, these decisions must be made by _her_ ," said Hux. "Mind you, that's according to your own laws. This qualifies as an elective medical procedure, after all."

As Lucy touched down, Owen and Chakotay rushed to her side. Chakotay had a tricorder out and was running it slowly up and down the length of her body, his face a picture of concern and concentration. Owen took her hand in both of his.

Lucy met Owen's anxious gaze, and she offered a weak smile to allay his fears. Then she looked to Captain Janeway and Hux, who were both watching her expectantly. She started rising to her feet, but Chakotay put a hand on her shoulder, quietly urging her to stay seated on the deck.

"Do it," said Lucy. "Disable the implants." She didn't particularly relish the prospect of welcoming terror, misery, and agony back into her life, but it seemed preferable to being treated like an alien spy by the crew of _Voyager_. She glanced at Owen, who nodded in support. "Change me back."

Captain Janeway nodded her approval and regarded Hux expectantly. Hux sighed. Then he raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.

 _root/query access: perceptual filters/_

 _root/perceptual filters: disable :: {all}/_

 _root/query access:Aug-Tech framework/_

 _root/Aug-Tech framework: initiate system shutdown/_

 _Initiating..._

"There," said Hux, "It's done."

The first thing Lucy noticed was how much her lungs burned. The strain of catching her breath after barely breathing for a couple minutes had left her throat hoarse and her lungs aching.

 _Canceling genetic enhancements…_

She had a bit of a headache, too. And the hard deck was pressing uncomfortably against her tailbone. Lucy shifted her weight to make herself more comfortable, and she was struck anew by how strange her body felt. She tried to remember exactly what Hux had said about the process of deactivating her implants.

"You said I'll go on looking this way? Even after the implants are gone?" Lucy heard the quiver in her own voice and was surprised to realize she was actually frightened. She missed her old self. She worried that her family wouldn't recognize her if she finally made it back home in this shape.

"Not exactly, no," said Hux. "Once your body metabolizes the exotic proteins, your complexion will return to something more like the way it was."

"But that's it? What about… I mean, this isn't my body!"

Owen clutched Lucy's hand tighter. "It'll be ok," he said. "Don't worry."

That struck her as a funny suggestion, and she laughed. " _Don't_ worry? I thought that was the whole problem! I mean you should be glad I'm worried!"

 _Deregulating cardiovascular system…_

"Indeed," said Hux, and he returned his attention to Captain Janeway. "At any rate, time is of the essence. The access point will close in just a couple minutes, and you have yet to settle your tab."

"I beg your pardon?" said Captain Janeway.

"Oh, yes. I can waive the court fees since you were found innocent, but then there are the Travel Network passage fees, the docking fees, the host services fee, the detention services fee…"

Captain Janeway shook her head. "We've read your Terms of Service backward and forwards. Those fees are all waived for customers in good standing."

Hux made an awkward face. "Yes, well…" and he indicated the damaged roof of the dome with a wide gesture of his arms.

"My officer was dying before our eyes!" said Janeway. "Your own policy permits weapons fire for self-defense."

"While I find that a dubious defense, I'm inclined to allow it, primarily because we don't have time for another tribunal. All the same, your party is liable for any and all damage that you inflicted on the station. Add to that the fact that your people have come here three times now, draining the Trade Hub's resources on each visit, and yet, you haven't actually _bought_ anything. Furthermore, it's clear you never truly intended to deal with the Trade Hub in good faith.

"Because, while it's true you received a message that could, technically, be construed as an invitation to board, your crew's log entries and Ensign Kang's memories are very clear. You would have forced entry and looted the station, regardless, if you could have gotten away with it."

"If the station were a derelict, as it appeared-"

"It would still be Delurididug property, Captain. In some respects, your ways are positively barbaric. Add to that all the little tricks you worked out to circumvent our security features, and I really cannot draw any other conclusion. I'm sorry, but I have no choice but to assign your people delinquent status.

"Anyway, time is up. I have to insist you settle your account and depart immediately. Now, how do you plan on paying?"

A dangerous look crossed Captain Janeway's features, and Lucy feared they were in for another firefight. It would be short and futile, and it would probably end with the party wrapped up in another mass confinement beam and imprisoned here forever, but Lucy was determined to master her reservations and do her part to help her crew, regardless. Chakotay and Owen rose from her side, back to their feet, and Lucy pulled on Owen's arm to lever herself to her feet, as well. She could feel her heart starting to race.

 _Deregulating endocrine system..._

Hux just smiled his pleasant smile, as if he were nothing more than a waiter in a restaurant, come to deliver their check.

After a long moment, Janeway spoke, defying everyone's expectations except the hologram's. "We have a small surplus of dilithium crystal-"

Hux shook his head and interrupted, "I'm sorry, Captain. In the interest of time, I've taken the liberty of perusing the catalog of ship's stores that you brought along with you, and I'm afraid I can find nothing of particular value in the list, even if we could complete a transfer before the deadline. Which, frankly, we couldn't."

Janeway was taken aback for just a moment, but she pushed on, "I have up-to-date star charts and-"

"I should have elaborated, Captain," said Hux, "I looked through your intellectual property, as well, and unfortunately, there isn't enough here to cover your bill."

"There are gigaquads of data-"

"Yes, and the vast majority of it is public domain, open source, nonproprietary, or its distribution rights are limited by the laws of your Federation. I can't put much commercial value on information that anyone else in the galaxy can have for free, Captain; that's not how a trade federation works. And you can't sell me copyrighted cultural works that you don't own, which pertains to almost everything else in your inventory."

"Well then, in the interest of time, Mr. Hux, why don't you cut to the chase and tell me what it is you want?"

 _Deregulating digestive system…_

Hux shrugged. "I would if I could. The fact is, between your laws and mine, there just isn't much you can offer me."

Janeway crossed her arms over her chest. "Well then, perhaps it would be best if we were on our way."

Hux grimaced. "As I think you know, it doesn't work that way."

A chill ran down Lucy's back. She rested her hand on the hilt of her hand phaser, convinced they were going to have to make that futile last stand, after all.

"What, then, will you keep us here until the wormhole closes?"

Hux shook his head. "There's no need to detain _all_ of you for the amount owed, Captain. We need only decide on a single liable individual, who will be detained either as collateral against your debt, or payment thereof, at the discretion of the Trade Hub.

"Now, Commander Chakotay has already accepted responsibility for the events that incurred the largest part of the debt, but you have the authority to make a different call, Captain. After all, it was Ensign Kang who activated the Aug-Tech apparatus without first rendering payment, triggering this whole chain of events in the first place. You could name her as the responsible party, and the Trade Hub would accept that judgment."

"You're asking me to _give_ you Ensign Kang?" said Janeway.

Lucy's heart was seized with terror at the thought. She wanted to scream, to deny the blame. It wasn't her fault the pod had activated. It wasn't her fault it grappled her with its whiplike cords and dragged her into its hellish, stifling, slime-filled innards and stabbed her with needles, over and over again, invading her body, invading her mind…

Lucy felt strong arms wrapped around her shoulders and realized she'd buried her face in her hands, and she was making a peculiar keening sound in her throat. Owen stood behind her, sheltering her in a protective embrace, trying to soothe her.

 _Deregulating musculoskeletal system…_

She felt physically sick. What had just happened? Was it a side effect of the implants shutting down? An attack of PTSD? Or was it just the thought of being trapped in the clutches of this station forever, tortured at the whim of a dispassionate A.I., never to see her crewmates or her family, ever again…

"That's not going to happen," said Captain Janeway, and Lucy felt immense relief.

"I understand," said Hux. "Chakotay it is, then."

Lucy's fought to pull herself together. She was disgracing herself in front of everyone. She took her hands from her face, wiped at her damp eyes with trembling fingers, and shrugged her way free off Owen's embrace.

"No," said Janeway, "Chakotay only acted on my orders."

"You're accepting responsibility, then?" said Hux. "That's perfectly permissible, Captain, but remember, you have a whole crew that relies on you to lead them."

"You don't need to lecture _me_ on the burden of command, hologram," said Janeway. "But a Starfleet captain doesn't deflect responsibility for her actions."

"Captain, they were my actions," said Chakotay. He turned to Hux. "And _my_ responsibility."

Lucy's fear became slightly less overwhelming as she watched Chakotay and Janeway argue over who would take the blame for her own mistake, and self-loathing swelled up in its place. Why should the captain or first officer pay the price for her stupidity? Why had she gone and touched that stars-forsaken pod in the first place?

"But it's _not_ your decision to make, Commander," said Janeway. "And we don't have time to argue about it."

 _Speak up!_ she berated herself, but she was paralyzed with fear. And it was the captain's decision, anyway. The captain had already vetoed the idea of her accepting responsibility, and there was no way Lucy was going to change her mind, especially when she couldn't find her own voice. Lucy tried to take solace in that fact, but mostly, she just felt like a coward, debilitated by selfish fears. If only they'd left her implants on, just a little longer…

 _Deregulating central nervous system…_

An idea struck Lucy, a way that might save both the captain and Chakotay, and a wave of dread rose up in her when she realized what it was she had to do. She badly wished she hadn't thought of it. Maybe she could just go on pretending it hadn't occurred to her? Not a soul could blame her if she just kept her mouth shut...

"Wait," said Lucy. Her voice felt tiny. She was surprised she'd managed to use it at all.

Neither the captain nor Chakotay seemed to hear her, but Hux raised a curious eyebrow and cast half a glance in her direction when she spoke up.

Owen heard her as well, and he seemed to sense her intentions. He stepped in front of Lucy, interposing himself between her and the hologram.

"I'm the one who caused the damage to the station!" Owen blurted out.

"Stand down, Chief," said Captain Janeway.

Owen pressed on, regardless. "I wasn't ordered to open fire. I did it on my own. I'm the sole responsible party."

"I said stand down!" Janeway shouted.

"And I said _wait!_ " said Lucy. She tried to step around Owen, but he put out an arm to hold her back.

"Cut it out, Owen!" said Lucy. She tried to shove him out of her way, but all her enhanced strength had left her, and he would not be moved. "Hux, I withdraw my consent!" she called over his shoulder. "Turn the implants back on."

"What are you doing, Ensign?" said Chakotay.

"Perceptual filters, too," Lucy told the hologram.

Hux nodded.

Owen shook his head, and when he spoke, his voice was pleading. "No, Luce…"

The hurt in his voice cut deep, and she wondered if she hadn't made a terrible mistake.

 _root/query access: active processes/_

 _root/active processes: cancel Aug-Tech shutdown protocol/_

 _Aug-Tech shutdown protocol canceled._

 _root/query access: perceptual filters/_

 _root/perceptual filters: restore perceptual filters to default/_

"Why, Ensign?" said Captain Janeway.

She felt a pang of guilt for going behind the captain's back, but suddenly her guilt lost the sting of sorrow, and her fear of making the wrong decision was forgotten. Her hands stopped their trembling, and her voice did not waiver when she spoke.

"Hux, will I be able to leave the station with my implants online?"

Hux shook his head. "That's never been an option. You must either relinquish Delurididug intellectual property or provide payment to obtain an operating license."

Lucy turned to Captain Janeway. She stood at attention and regarded her captain with a steady gaze. "I'm sorry, Captain. It looks like I'll be the one taking responsibility for my mistakes."

She could see understanding and dread dawning in her captain's eyes, and she felt sympathy for her. She supposed sometimes even Captain Janeway couldn't save every hostage.

"Ensign, we'll find another way…"

"I'm sorry, Captain," said Hux, "But we've reached the end of our working relationship. I'm pleased we've been able to reach an equitable agreement, but I'm sincerely sorry for how we had to get there. Now, it's time for you to go."

Owen flipped out. "Like hell!" he shouted, and he clutched Lucy to his side with one arm, while with the other he brandished his phaser rifle at the hologram, and then suddenly, he was gone.

Lucy stumbled to regain her balance as Owen's domineering presence vanished from her side. She looked around, surprised to see that every other member of the away team was gone. "Where…" said Lucy.

Only Hux remained, regarding her with remorseful eyes.

Had she actually done it? Had she saved the away team at the cost of her own life? Or had he just locked them away somewhere else?

"What did you do? Where are they?" she demanded.

Hux waved a hand, and a holographic projection appeared in the air in front of Lucy, showing space around the station. _Voyager_ 's shuttle was caught in the silvery rays of a repulsor beam, its impulse engine glowing bright blue as it fought against the beam's inexorable pressure, driving it inexorably towards the wormhole. She could see that the wormhole was getting dimmer by the moment. The cloud of red-orange dust that surrounded the singularity was starting to disperse, and the violet eye of the portal was flickering more and more.

And yet, in spite of the pending closure of the wormhole, the shuttle fought against the repulsor beam tooth and nail, thrashing left and right, bucking and charging against the light like a bull caught with a lasso.

"Come on, come on…" Lucy muttered, willing them to give up and just let her go.

"If I turn up the beam any more, I risk crushing their ship," Hux remarked.

Lucy wondered what they could possibly hope to accomplish at this stage. Then, somewhere nearby, she heard the familiar hum of a transporter beam, and a jolt of excitement ran through her. She looked around, hunting for the source of the familiar sound, and spotted the improvised device that Harry had assembled during that desperate escape attempt. It was shrouded in the sparkling glow of a transporter beam, suspended in mid-transport.

It was a transport enhancer! Brilliant! Lucy was amazed that they'd found a way to cut through the station's dampening field, but she couldn't honestly say she was surprised. A smile spread over her face, and she made a dive for the device.

"Oh, what now?" said Hux, sounding greatly annoyed.

Lucy took hold of the transport enhancer and felt the transporter beam spread to enshroud her whole body.

A moment later, Lucy found herself kneeling on the small transporter pad of the shuttlecraft, smiling triumphantly up at Owen, who shouted to the fore of the little vessel, "We got her, sir! Let's go!"

He turned back to her, the look of elation and relief on his face mirroring Lucy's emotions perfectly, and Lucy couldn't say which of them initiated the kiss, but the next moment, her eyes were closed, and his firm lips subsumed hers in an entirely unprofessional moment of abandon. Her hands went to his shoulders, and his hand cupped her cheek.

And then, his lips were gone. His hands were gone, too, and the voices of the away team were gone, and the hum of the shuttlecraft was gone.

Lucy opened her eyes, and Hux was staring back at her. She was right back where she'd been a moment ago.

She looked around in time to watch the holographic representation of the shuttlecraft reach the mouth of the wormhole, while in the background, the same drama unfolded a dozen times from a dozen different angles, a dozen tiny shuttles shepherded into the mouth of a dozen flickering wormholes.

"Stop!" Lucy shouted. It was too much. Even with no sense of sorrow, she understood the depths of this tragedy, to come a hair's breadth from total victory and watch it snatched away at the last possible instant.

As one, every image of the wormhole flared bright as the shuttle collided with the aperture, and then they all blinked out at once, leaving only the dim, gray image of the space station, suddenly devoid of the warm glow of the wormhole, nothing to keep it company but its own far-off reflections.

Lucy gazed at the forlorn projection for a long moment, trying to absorb the enormity of what she was witnessing. The one point of contact that joined this forsaken pocket of space to the entire Universe was gone, and she was suddenly very, very alone.

Her eyes met Hux's expectant gaze.

"Oh, stars," said Lucy.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

"Captain, please! Do something!" Owen shouted.

Janeway looked back from the co-pilot seat and studied her bereft pretty officer. With all six seats in the shuttle occupied, Owen was left standing in the aisle, hands braced on the backs of Crewman Thorold's and Ensign Vorik's chairs.

"We're doing everything we can, Chief," she said.

Other than Thorold and Vance, every member of the away team was tapping furiously on their consoles, running all manner of scans, conducting diagnostics on the shuttle, and reestablishing contact with _Voyager_.

"Lieutenant Tuvok's hailing us, sir," said Harry.

Janeway tapped a couple keys, and Tuvok's face appeared on the shuttle monitor.

"Captain," said Tuvok. "Do you require assistance?"

"Get the ship's sensors trained on the energy signature of the wormhole," said Janeway. "Find a way to reopen it. In the meantime, we'll be coming back aboard."

"Captain, there's no time!" said Owen.

Janeway froze for a moment, composing herself. Then, she addressed Owen calmly. "Stand down, Vance," she said. "You're not seeing things clearly. Thorold, give him your seat."

Thorold got to his feet in a flash.

"I'll stand, sir," said Vance, "If it's all the same."

"I said stand down, Chief!" Janeway shouted. "Now sit in that chair and get ahold of yourself! That's an order."

Owen honestly didn't know if he was capable of sitting down at the moment. She was back there on that station, trapped with a malevolent hologram that could literally turn off her breath with a thought! Every moment he spent on this shuttle doing nothing, the chances of getting back to her in time seemed more remote. He looked from the empty chair to the captain, who was still watching him expectantly, and he forced himself down into the seat.

The moment he sat down, Owen went to work on his console, checking the shuttle's weapon systems. To his surprise, the phasers weren't even online. What if they found a way back through the wormhole? He couldn't let the station catch them with their pants down. He started warming up the phasers, just in case, and then his console went dark.

At first, he thought it was a malfunction. He looked around at the others, still going about their business like normal, and realized the truth-he was being cut off. The captain didn't trust him with a live console all of a sudden. Owen clenched his fist and brought it down on his console screen as hard as he could.

"Chief Vance, you're relieved of duty," said Captain Janeway, sounding calm once more. "You're to report to sickbay as soon as we've docked."

"Captain, I'm _fine_ ," Owen spoke through clenched teeth. "I can help! I _need_ to…"

"I know what you're going through, Chief," Chakotay interrupted. "You're just going to have to trust us, though. We'll do everything in our power to get her back."

Owen met Chakotay's commiserating gaze, and a powerful urge to scream, shout, rail and rage started welling up in his breast.

She'd been right _there._ He'd held her in his arms. They'd outsmarted the station! They'd _won!_ How could she have just _vanished_ again, after all that? He took a deep breath in and made himself let it out slowly. The impulse to rage and bellow wasn't subsiding. All he could see was her face, smiling up at him from the transporter pad. All he could feel was the ghost of her hands touching his cheek and his neck. The shuttle needed to dock soon, or he was going to lose it completely in front of the captain and the whole senior staff.

It was all his fault. He'd let Lucy down, every step of the way. She was mutilated by that pod in the first place because of his inability to protect her. She'd felt alienated from the crew because he'd failed to stand up for her when she needed it most, and that was why she'd been all gung-ho to return to the station. She'd thought she had to prove herself.

He should have talked her out of it. He should have done whatever it took to keep her from going back there. He should have acted faster when the hologram started toying with her in that tribunal chamber. He shouldn't have hesitated, he should've just started firing right then-no, that was wrong. He shouldn't have fired at all. That was the excuse the station had needed. It threatened to hold the captain or Chakotay over the damages, but it was obvious she was the one it wanted all along, and dammit, she just couldn't help but play the martyr. Why couldn't she just… Why couldn't he stop her from…

Owen wasn't going to be able to contain himself any longer. Out the forward viewport, _Voyager's_ shuttlebay doors loomed large, but he wasn't going to make it.

"Permission to hit the head, sir?" he asked Chakotay, who sized him up with a glance before nodding his permission, and Owen vaulted out of his chair and lurched over to the refresher, locking himself in. The moment he was alone, his rage and grief erupted out of him, and the others in the small shuttlecraft were polite enough to pretend they couldn't hear it.

* * *

"Get in," said Hux.

Lucy and he stood in the room with the frosted pillars that Lucy had seen on her first visit to the station-the ones that held biomatter in stasis. She assumed, now, that they held other prisoners of the station.

A moment ago, she'd been haranguing the imperturbable hologram in the tribunal chamber, unwilling to let him get a word in edgewise. She'd been almost willing to take the burden of being the station's hostage before, but coming so close to cheating that fate had reminded her how unjust this situation really was. Whatever his legalistic excuses may have been, Hux didn't have the right to imprison her in this stars-forsaken pit at the bottom of subspace.

Then there was a flash of light, and now they stood in front of one of the pillars. Its glass-like, cylindrical wall was rendered transparent, and an opening the width of a doorway faced Lucy.

Lucy looked from the pillar to her jailor, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "No."

Hux raised an eyebrow. "Ms. Kang… Lucy…"

"It's _Ensign_ Kang, Mr. Hux," said Lucy.

Hux shook his head. "Not anymore, I'm afraid. You've been lawfully confiscated by the Delurididug Trade Hub. You're no longer a member of Starfleet or a citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and you're no longer bound by their laws or regulations."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Says who, _you_? You're just a derelict hunk of space junk left over from a dead civilization, long faded from the annals of history. Neither I, nor Starfleet, recognize your legal authority."

Hux shrugged. "I know that's your opinion, but it's at odds with your legal reality. The Delurididug Trade Federation exists _here_ , regardless of whether it does or doesn't exist elsewhere, and you're now a part of it, same as me. So, I'll tell you again: get... in... the... chamber.

Lucy shook her head. "Make me."

Hux sighed.

 _root/query access: executive initiation :: override_

Lucy was scandalized. She had an _override_? "I _knew_ it, you liar!" she said as she stepped into the tube.

"I don't lie," said Hux.

It was only after she was standing inside of the pillar that she had the wherewithal to even _consider_ resisting his order, and the willpower to step back out again was slow in coming. It didn't stop her from speaking her mind, though.

"You _said_ you wouldn't modify my executive functions. You're such a liar! This whole ordeal was just a trap, wasn't it? You staged everything, just so you could capture a Starfleet officer."

"You're mistaken," said Hux, "on all counts."

The clear walls flowed into the open doorway like water, leaving no trace of the opening in the featureless glass.

"I look forward to talking again soon, Lucy," said Hux, and the pillar began to fill with an odorless white fog.

Lucy looked around, hunting for a flaw in the glass, a hatch in the floor, or _something_ that might offer even a glimmer of hope for an escape. "I can't say the same," she said.

"Try to keep an open mind," said Hux. "We're going to do big things together."

His imperturbable, tone-deaf demeanor made Lucy want to murder him. "I'm not doing _anything_ for you, _morceau de merde_!" she screamed, and she ran at the wall full-tilt, leading with her shoulder. Absent fear, Lucy had no natural impulse to shield herself from harm, and for once, she chose to embrace that fact and throw her full mass, hard as she could, against the transparent barrier.

She bounced off of it like a pinball, landing sprawled out in the middle of the fog-shrouded chamber. If she was hurt, she couldn't tell, and she didn't care. Lucy climbed back to her feet and hunted for Hux through the glass, but she could hardly see beyond the fog that enveloped her anymore.

"It'll take me a little time to get things ready," said Hux.

She followed his voice and found the last traces of his silhouette through the featureless gray fog that filled her world.

"So just sit tight, ok?"

"Why don't you sit on a-"

 _root: sleep mode/_

* * *

"We can't reopen the portal," said Torres. "There's no way."

"There's got to be _something_ ," said Captain Janeway.

The senior staff was gathered once more in the deck one conference room. They'd been working the problem for three days, now, all the while monitoring the space where the wormhole once was, looking for signs of activity.

Torres shook her head. "The only trace of the wormhole now is a local increase in the dark and vacuum energy fields. It looks like the wormhole was slowly boiling the fabric of space the whole time it was open, and the hotter space got, the more energy was required to keep the wormhole open. Once the wormhole finally vanished, the concentration of dark energy caused space to rebound, forming a locally positive spacetime curvature. It's like scar tissue, protecting this region of space from further subspace incursions. Just warping out of here is going to take noticeably more power than usual."

"This may explain why there are so few examples of stable wormholes in nature," said Tuvok. "It seems that space itself rejects them."

"But even unstable wormholes have to go somewhere," said Tom. "Even if it's become microscopic, a hole in space can't be erased. Or at least, that's what they taught in the academy."

Torres nodded. "True, but it could have become smaller than an electron and migrated to another galaxy by now. Wherever it is, though, there's one place in the galaxy where I can say with virtual certainty that it isn't."

The conference room was quiet for a long moment.

"Is this it, then?" said Harry. "Is she gone? Did we lose another one?"

Janeway felt the same forlorn grief that Harry voiced. _Voyager_ had been steadily hemorrhaging good people since they'd arrived in the Delta Quadrant. Just this year, they'd lost Martin, Hogan, Bennet, Darwin… the list went on, and it only got harder with each new casualty. Janeway had told Kang that she represented the future of _Voyager_ , and she hadn't been exaggerating. What hope did they have for the future, if they kept losing officers at this rate?

She supposed that was just one more reason to find a way back home as soon as possible. Janeway looked to Torres. "Do you have all the data you need to spot any other wormholes like this one going forward?"

Lieutenant Torres nodded. "I've already recalibrated the sensors. We'll be able to spot one anywhere in a fifty lightyear radius with routine sweeps."

"Good," said Captain Janeway. "From now on, we'll keep an eye out. Lucy Kang is not dead, people, and we'll never stop looking for her. That said, there's nothing to gain by sitting around here anymore. Let's get back to our posts."

With that, Janeway stood up from the table, and her officers followed suit. They filed out of the conference room onto the bridge, and Captain Janeway made her way to the center seat as her senior officers found their customary stations.

As Tom settled himself down at the conn, he looked back at Chakotay, a thoughtful expression on his face. When Chakotay returned his gaze, Tom said, "Commander, you spent more time on that station than anyone. Do you think that it _ever_ planned on trading peacefully? Or was it all a trap from the get-go?"

Chakotay just shook his head. "I have a hard time believing what happened to Kang was a random accident, but at the same time, I can't picture anyone creating such an elaborate ruse just to kidnap a single person. With the power that station held, it didn't need to put on all the legal song and dance. It could have trapped the whole away team when we first came aboard, and we would have been powerless to stop it."

"Why didn't it, then?" said Tom. "Like you said, it's hard to believe we just fell victim to a malfunctioning bit of hardware. It was like it planned everything from the start."

Chakotay shrugged. "Maybe it did. Maybe both theories are valid. From what I could tell, the station is programmed to acquire anything it needs, so long as it doesn't violate its Terms of Service. It wouldn't be the first A.I. to exploit loopholes to get around the limits of its programming."

"What would it need with Ensign Kang, though?" said Ayala.

"The same thing we do, I imagine," said Janeway.

"What, a pair of hands to operate the station?" said Tom.

"More than that," said Harry. "She's a qualified specialist in bioneural circuitry, and the station has a similar technology."

Janeway shook her head. "Beyond that, even," she said, "Ensign Kang was one of the brightest young minds on this ship, lacking only the temperance that comes from experience. She wasn't just a fine officer, she was an investment in the future of _Voyager_."

Janeway stared ahead at the viewscreen, gazing into the murky depths of the Nekrit Expanse and contemplating the tens of thousands of light-years that still lay ahead. After a moment, she shook herself from her reverie. "And something tells me she will be again. If it's at all possible, we _will_ find her… someday. But we won't find her here. Tom, set a course… for home."

THE END

Lucy Kang will return in…

STAR TREK

ODYSSEY

In The Palace of Calypso

Author's note:

Did you enjoy this story? Do you have thoughts on how it could be improved? Please, post reviews! Have a question about the story? PM me! And consider favoriting and/or following this work. It'll probably be a few weeks before I'm ready to start posting chapters from the next installment of Star Trek Odyssey, but nothing motivates me to write faster like getting feedback from the community.


	11. Preview of In the Palace of Calypso

Here's a sneak peek of...

Star Trek

Odyssey

Episode 2: In the Palace of Calypso

Lucy took a deep breath, savoring the fresh, salt-scented air. She drifted on the surface of the ocean, the gentle waves rocking her side to side, bearing her along on their relentless march to the shore. She heard only the soothing white noise of the waves caressing the sandy beach, the gentle splash of her hands paddling lightly against the water, and the occasional warble of a Risan gull.

Lucy opened her eyes, and crystal-blue skies filled her sight. A single, wispy cloud, gold on its westward face and lavender on its shadowed side, drifted high overhead.

She would have been happy to float this way forever, just soaking up the peacefulness of this moment, but it wasn't long before the waves became choppy and her heel struck against the soft, red-gold sand of the beach. Lucy lowered her feet to the bottom and rose to her feet. Between the waves, the water didn't quite reach her knees.

The evening breeze stirred against Lucy's damp skin, her black spaghetti-strap bikini doing little to ward off the chill. She decided she was ready to leave the water for the day. There wasn't much sunlight left, and her skin was starting to prune.

Her eyes scanned the beach for her towel as she marched through the shallow water to the shoreline. She supposed she must have drifted a little ways down the beach on her trip back to shore, but she wasn't sure in which direction, or how far. So, she looked to the line of Risan starburst palms that towered over the dunes beyond the tidal zone, looking for the outline of her small cabana in amidst the trees. The Risan sun hung low at her back, casting a honeyed glow on the open beach and dappling everything beyond the treeline in deep shadows.

Lucy was surprised by the presence of someone behind her, draping her sun-warmed towel over her shoulders. She looked up over her shoulder at Owen's smiling face. He wrapped the towel around her and pulled her close, and Lucy let her weight settle against his warm body as he ran his hands up and down her sides, drying her off with her own towel.

"How did you manage to sneak up behind me?" said Lucy. She was suddenly smiling like mad.

Owen let out a single soft, breathy chuckle. "I saw you wash in on the tide, like so much driftwood."

" _Excuse_ me?" said Lucy, feigning offense. Her irrepressible grin betrayed her. "Did you just call me driftwood?"

"Sorry," said Owen, "I meant to say… I saw you rise from the seafoam, like Aphrodite would."

Lucy quirked an eyebrow, and her eyes darted over his lips. "Better."

"And… I thought you might be cold, so I found your towel."

Lucy's lips twisted in consideration. "Still doesn't explain how you snuck up on me, though."

"Sure it does," said Owen, and he smirked. "You're not very observant, you know."

Lucy scoffed. "I am so," she said, and she pushed herself free of Owen's arms and turned around to face him directly. She sized him up with a critical eye, his broad shoulders and lean physique on display in his white swimming trunks, his wet, tousled blonde hair, his slanted grin, his honest hazel eyes, drinking her in like she was the only thing in the galaxy that could sustain him.

She pressed her finger against his heart. "I _see_ you, Owen Vance," she said.

His smile grew brighter. "And I see _you_ , Lucy Kang." He stepped closer and dipped his head, and Lucy stood on her toes, bringing her lips to his for a soft, ponderous kiss. She let her hands trail across his warm, damp shoulders and down the sculpted contours of his back.

After a moment, Owen took a step back. "But you don't see yourself too well these days, do you?" His eyes were suddenly serious, even a little concerned.

Her brow crinkled in confusion, and she shook her head. "What do you mean?"

In response, he just looked down at the beach, and Lucy followed his gaze to the wet sand. A few centimeters of water surged up around their feet, and as the wave receded, the thin sheen of water that lingered on the sand rendered a vivid reflection. Lucy saw herself, her black hair falling to her shoulders in thick, wet tangles, framing her wide, dark eyes, her full lips, and the delicate angles of her heart-shaped face. The colorful towel draped over her shoulders hung down to her svelte waist, concealing her buxom figure but not the gentle swell of her hips or her shapely legs.

Then another surge of water dashed the image away, and as the wave receded, the reflection that emerged was subtly different.

Her wet hair was matted flat to her scalp. Her eyes weren't quite so wide, and her features weren't quite so delicate. Her legs were about as shapely as twigs, and her bony hips didn't swell so much as jut.

The image of the way her body used to be left Lucy conflicted and confused. It was her _real_ body, and Lucy missed the sense of living in her own skin. At the same time, she'd begun to take the more classically beautiful body that had been hoisted on her for granted. It was a relief, not agonizing over her appearance, having the effortless confidence that comes from feeling beautiful. Still, the sense of her body's artificiality gnawed at her.

But why was she seeing this image in the sand? Lucy looked down at her real body and opened her towel. She'd never filled out a bikini this perfectly in her old skin. The image was just an illusion, then; a trick of the light. Lucy looked back to Owen, wondering what he was playing at. Only now, the sun was sinking behind him, setting the horizon alight. All she could see of him was his silhouette, crowned in liquid fire.

 _root: system :: reboot/_

More is coming very soon! Keep an eye out for _Star Trek Odyssey - In the Palace of Calypso_ to find out what fate has in store for Lucy Kang. Things are about to get weird.

Also, I'd like to thank everyone who gave this story a chance, and especially the people who stuck with it from beginning to end, added it to their following and/or favorite lists, and offered valuable feedback. You made me want to keep writing, and that is a gift.


End file.
